Adelard Kakunze Offers Mobile Technology To Diagnose Diabetes Via “Mdiab Burundi”
Originally published on Akeza
Adelard Kakunze, a young Burundian entrepreneur was selected for the 2015 Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Program and is the Founder of a mobile technologies start-up for health. His project aims to assist in the detection of risk factors for diabetes using the mobile.
Adelard’s mobile application will be operational after tests in two health centers. Forecasts put its launch in July 2016.
In a document presenting the project, Mr. Kakunze wrote: “When a person has long been diagnosed of diabetes, opportunities and potential benefits associated with early diagnosis and treatment are lost. In sub-Saharan Africa, where health care resources are often lacking and diabetes screening is not always a priority for governments, the proportion of people with undiagnosed diabetes reaches 90% in some countries such as Burundi.”
The company,”mDiab Burundi’s” objective is to screen for risk factors associated with diabetes and to educate the Burundian population about diabetes using mobile technology.
“A lot of people saw the significant growth in mobile cellular penetration rate in Africa and Burundi in particular (the number of mobile subscribers, which was zero in 1999, reached about 2.5 million in 2012 on a population of about 10 million people)”, he wrote to justify the choice of mobile in particular.
This project is so revolutionary that the forecasts in terms of impact show impressive figures “mDiab Burundi project will enable 417,000 people to be screened for diabetes and so to adopt a healthy lifestyle if they are at risk. In addition, they will receive relevant information about the disease and how the manage it every day. The project will help the sick people on treatment to have a follow up with the health center without doing long distances.”
“Mobile telephones have done miracles in other areas such as mobile banking in Africa. Why not do the same in the field of health and chronic illnesses in particular? ” They conclude.
