Many immigrants from Africa to North America and Europe left friends and relatives back in Africa. This immigrant population for many years has continued to make extensive efforts, either as a group or individually, to send badly needed health related resources to their loved ones in Africa. These resources include money for treatment, medicines and other items. Some have made efforts to bring loved ones to Europe or the U.S. for expensive medical care.

In 1998, a group of professionals in the U.S. and in Africa began to discuss African health issues and possible solutions. These professionals were concerned because so many of their friends in Africa were dying young, and the reasons cited were things like "organ failure", "witchcraft", and other non-AIDS causes. They evaluated alternative solutions against the context of African realities, the desire to enhance African strengths rather than supplant them, the potential for increased preventive health patterns in target areas, and the potential for comprehensive and long-lasting health benefits to Africans.

HealthLink for Africa was borne from a realization by its founders that the diagnostic and health information gap in many areas in Africa could be filled with a few relatively simple developments, with enormous lifesaving results, and with the potential to impact all facets of health care.  HealthLink for Africa International was incorporated on April 5, 2000 by four of the U.S. discussants: Oladipo Anjorin, Alfred Ntoko, Gerald De-Souza, and Mwambo Luma.