AI, Blockchain and Drones
Healthcare is benefiting from disruptive technology
By Rosalind McLymont, april, 2019
Nohemie Mawaka created Stats Congo to help reduce the high mortality rate among mothers and their newborns in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Stats Congo helps Congolese hospitals digitally collect data to monitor medical indicators linked to that high mortality rate.
Eye surgeon Andrew Bastawrous developed Peek, an “eye-phone,” or smartphone app, for use in Kenya, which uses a low-cost clip-on device to take images of the back of the eye to test sight.
Sierra Leonean roboticist David Sengeh is working with his team at IBM Africa on artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms that can predict cancer’s progression. AI software can be trained with a database of images to detect colour changes inside the cervix that point to patients at high risk for cervical cancer, which can be treated if caught in time. Cervical cancer kills 60,000 women in Africa a year.
In his Aug. 6, 2018, Harvard Business Review article, “How New Technologies Can Transform Africa’s Healthcare System, Ndubuisi Ekekwe, a founder of the nonprofit African Institution of Technology, notes that many African entrepreneurs are working on how to handle the data challenge in the continent’s healthcare sector.
And in Rwanda, drones fly blood from a central distribution centre to hospitals outside the capital, Kigali, dropping boxed packs of blood to the earth via a paper parachute. Tanzania, too, uses drones to deliver medical products from four distribution centres in what some estimate will be the world’s largest autonomous delivery system anywhere in the world.
Healthcare is a significant beneficiary as Africa’s tech ecosystem continues to grow. According to Disrupt Africa, which tracks the continent’s tech startup activity, overall investment in local start-ups increased by 51 per cent to more than $195 million in 2017 over 2016. In the first half of 2018, venture capitalists and angel investors funded 13 tech startups in healthcare, placing the sector second only to fintech, which attracted funding in 25 healthcare deals, WeeTracker reports in its latest “African Startups & VC Ecosystem Report.”
The annual TEDGlobal conference in Tanzania in 2017 brought out a range of new technologies that could revolutionise healthcare for the poor. Infectious diseases are fast being overtaken by afflictions such as cancer as the biggest health problem in Africa, where some countries have only one pathologist per one million people, according to published reports. Oil-rich Nigeria, with a population of 180 million, has only four MRI machines per one million people.
In his Aug. 6, 2018, Harvard Business Review article, “How New Technologies Can Transform Africa’s Healthcare System, Ndubuisi Ekekwe, a founder of the nonprofit African Institution of Technology, notes that many African entrepreneurs are working on how to handle the data challenge in the continent’s healthcare sector. Ekekwe himself is the founder of Medcera, a cloud-based electronic health record platform that helps doctors to improve patient outcomes, supports patients to engage more efficiently with doctors, and facilitates integration with other health stakeholders such as labs, eye centres, and pharmacies. Ekwekwe says he makes Medcera’s software free to health institutions, from hospitals to labs, and from imaging centers to patients. Addressing the data challenge is going to be critical if AI systems are going to help improve lives, he contends. “Data, with strong privacy and security, will be the catalyst to anchor this future where healthcare delivery would not be fully tethered to humans across African villages and cities.”
Data, with strong privacy and security, will be the catalyst to anchor [a] future where healthcare delivery would not be fully tethered to humans across African towns and cities
Disruptive technologies developed by local entrepreneurs for Africa’s healthcare ecosystem include:
APMIS, All Purpose Medical Information System (Nigeria), which turns hard copies of medical data into electronic health records for improved communication and collaboration among stakeholders.
Medicine delivery service Cheefa (Egypt), a 2018 Demo Africa winner, which will participate with other African tech startups in the 2019 edition of the Lions@frica Innovation Tour in Silicon Valley.
LifeBank (Nigeria), which uses digital supply chain technology to deliver blood when and where it is needed in Lagos.
M-SCAN (Uganda), which develops portable mobile ultrasound devices (ultrasonic probes) that are compatible with laptops, tablets and mobile phones. M-SCAN won the 2018 edition of TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield Africa in Lagos.
MTRAC (Uganda) an SMS-based technology that connects hospitals to the national drug chain to report on local medicine stocks using their mobile phones.
RxAll (Nigeria), an AI platform for pharmaceutical authentication and deliveries.
Ubenwa (Nigeria), which uses machine learning to diagnose birth asphyxia by analyzing a baby’s cry.
Tech partnerships with major corporations are no stranger to healthcare in Africa. For example, Swiss pharmaceutical manufacturer Novartis International AG has partnered with mobile communications company Vodacom South Africa to connect community health workers to doctors through mobile technology. And in Nigeria, U.S. multinational General Electric Co. has distributed cheap flip phone ultrasound scanners to diagnose more pregnant women.
