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Costa Ricans Design Mobile App to Report Dengue Breeding Sites
A free app that allows the public to report pools and other areas of water where dengue-carrying mosquitoes have laid their eggs could help control outbreaks of the disease in Costa Rica and beyond, say its developers and health officials. Costa Rican company GeoTecnologías joined forces with the country’s Ministry of Health to develop the Dengue Breeding Report application. The app allows the public to report mosquito ‘hatcheries’ to the ministry and will allow the ministry to map this data. Read More »
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Digitizing Maps Of Malaria Hotspots To Save Lives
Mapping collaboration between Europe and Africa has led to the creation of a digitized malaria mapping database that for the first time brings together all available malaria data, helping tackle a disease that kills more than 660,000 people every year.
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Drones Spread Wings From War Zones To Disaster Areas
While lawmakers around the world struggle to keep up with the growth in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) — commonly known as drones — innovation and community participation are changing how this weapon of modern warfare can be used for humanitarian purposes. Read More »
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Ken Banks and FrontlineSMS: How 'Reluctant Innovators' Offer Hope to the World
Ken Banks might, in some respects, be described as a reluctant innovator. In 2005, he created FrontlineSMS, a simple piece of software that enables a cheap laptop to use a mobile phone to send, receive and collate group text messages, effectively creating a communication network. It’s an idea that has helped many NGOs connect with isolated populations.
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Mexican Team Builds Navigation Device For Blind People
Mexican researchers have developed an artificial intelligence navigation system for partially or totally blind people that can sense its surroundings in three dimensions. The prototype device is designed to allow users to freely move from one point to another avoiding both static and moving obstacles, and can learn to recognise colours and utility bills. Read More »
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Mobile Technology Supports Frontline Health Workers in South Africa
Could the Mobenzi telemedicine platform solve challenges facing South Africa’s overstretched healthcare services? Munyaradzi Makoni reports. Read More »
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Open Data Key To Tackling Neglected Tropical Diseases
Open data access could promote collaborations among researchers in Africa and help in the fight against malaria, tuberculosis (TB) and neglected tropical diseases such as sleeping sickness, also called African trypanosomiasis. At a time when demand for open data in health and drug discovery is dominating the digital space, some researchers say the model could work for Africa and alleviate the sufferings of many from these diseases. Following the call on 23 April this year from the WHO for the disclosure of all results from clinical trials of new medicines, there is a push towards greater transparency.
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Overlooked Disease Killing Tens of Thousands in the Tropics
Researchers have raised the alarm about an overlooked bacterial disease that they say killed 89,000 people in 79 countries in 2015. In a paper published in Nature Microbiology last week (11 January), researchers say that melioidosis is likely to be present in most of the tropics, including 34 countries where it has never been reported.
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Turning Mobile Devices Into Emergency Tools
The strongest recorded storm to ever hit land slammed into the Philippines at 195 miles per hour just over a year ago, on 8 November 2013...One of the problems in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan was the failure of mobile phone networks. Many base stations were damaged or ran out of power, rendering the tools — which could otherwise have enabled separated families or health workers to communicate — powerless. But there are simple and affordable tweaks that handset manufacturers could introduce to make their products more resilient and useful in disasters, according to Wladimir Alonso, a global health researcher at the US National Institutes of Health...
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