Fear of needles prompts students to design software to test malaria Pain caused by the rapid finger prick test to one of the students triggers a scientific innovation that could save thousands of patients if embraced by the government. Kampala When Brian Giita, a 22-year-old first year student at Makerere University, got malaria at the close of last year, he had no idea that it would trigger his thinking into designing a mobile phone application that diagnoses malaria without drawing a blood sample. His experience at a local clinic to have tests done was very painful since he hated needles, and injections all his life. And when the semester opened in February, he and his classmate Joshua Businge, both Computer Science students, were asked to develop a project as part of their academic requirements. An application that could diagnose malaria without being pricked to draw blood, is the first idea that came to his mind. And that is how the idea, code named Code8, was born. It has since has won the group an award in the category of UN Women at the Microsoft Imagine Cup competitions in Russia. “We wanted a mobile phone application that would diagnose malaria without having to draw a blood sample,” Giita, the brain behind the project, says. “We have named it Matibabu, a Swahili word, meaning a medical centre. With this application, we want to bring medical centres to our homes through the mobile phone platform,” he adds. But the duo needed Simon Lubambo, a fourth year Electrical Engineering student and Josiah Kavuma, a third-year Information Technology student to join them since the former had software knowledge, while the latter was a mentor. How the application works The application uses a light sensor connected to a tablet that is passed over a finger to diagnose malaria. By connecting a custom piece of hardware (matiscope) to the windows phone, the user is able to diagnose and know their malaria status in the shortest time possible. The results are sent to the user’s skydrive for medical record keeping and sharing with their personal doctors. “You just need to download the application on your phone, customise the hardware and all you have to do is connect the finger onto the hardware. Then it scans through your blood cells maximumly for one minute,” says one of the Code 8 members. After diagnosis, it brings to your phone screen a results page showing whether you have malaria on not. Then you can either print or share the results with any doctors on your phone contacts or you can call the doctor and give him/her the results so that he prescribes medicine. The team adds: “For now, we are using the windows phone and that means only those with that type of phone can access the application but since we are still in the development stages, we will bring it down to every mobile phone once we get approval from the relevant authorities.”
Posted on: Tue, 23 Jul 2013 19:28:04 +0000
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