Brunei launches AI-powered national programme to prevent cardiovascular disease

At the 2026 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Dr. Giovanni Caforio, Chairman of Novartis, announced a new partnership between the Novartis Foundation, the Ministry of Health of Brunei Darussalam, and EVYD Technology. The collaboration aims to implement an AI-driven national programme to prevent cardiovascular disease as part of the global initiative CARDIO4Cities.

The programme builds on Brunei’s existing digital health platform, BruHealth, and seeks to use population-wide data and artificial intelligence to identify high-risk individuals early, enabling targeted interventions. The initiative is designed to reduce the country’s cardiovascular disease burden and improve overall heart health outcomes.

The partnership was featured at the Davos session “Innovating for Social Impact at Scale Through Partnerships and Artificial Intelligence,” co-hosted by the Novartis Foundation, Novo Nordisk, and the World Heart Federation. The session included a dialogue on the future of digital health and resilient public health systems, moderated by Dr. Ann Aerts, Head of the Novartis Foundation, with participants including Gong Yingying, Founder and Chairwoman of Yidu Tech, and Marnix van Ginneken, Chairman of the Philips Foundation.

Gong highlighted that the CARDIO4Cities deployment in Brunei represents a strategic national initiative. The programme aims to shift the public health system from reactive responses to proactive, predictive approaches, integrating fragmented services and applying data-driven precision management.

Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for more than 70% of global fatalities. In Brunei, it is the primary cause of mortality, posing ongoing challenges for the healthcare system. Structural issues, such as fragmented data infrastructure and limited population-level monitoring, hinder prevention efforts in many countries.

Through the new programme, Brunei plans to leverage AI to stratify cardiovascular risk across the population and guide differentiated interventions. The technology, provided by EVYD, supports population-scale insights and real-world evidence generation, which can assist in research, clinical trials, and health system decision-making.

BruHealth, initially developed during the COVID-19 pandemic for infectious disease tracking, has evolved into a comprehensive national health platform. It integrates government policy, clinical workstations, and citizen-facing services, covering over 85% of Brunei’s population. Residents can access health records, receive personalised AI-driven guidance, schedule appointments, and monitor wellness indicators. EVYD will support data integration, analytics, and nationwide implementation of CARDIO4Cities.

Brunei is the first country to adopt CARDIO4Cities nationally, targeting four major cardiovascular risk factors: hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and hyperlipidaemia. The programme has been previously deployed in more than 40 cities worldwide, including São Paulo, Dakar, and Ulaanbaatar, with reported improvements in blood pressure control and reductions in stroke and heart attack incidence within 15–21 months.

The partnership offers a model for scaling non-communicable disease prevention and is expected to enhance Brunei’s public health capacity while demonstrating the potential of AI-driven, prevention-focused healthcare systems globally.