Ugandan wins Africa prize for bloodless malaria test | Hacker News Reader

Ugandan wins Africa prize for bloodless malaria test

bbc.com

134 pointsvezycash34 comments

Any details on how it works? There isn't a lot of technical info on the website: http://matibabu.thinkitlimited.com/

Assuming this device works.

And worries about production, commercialization and raising funds in a VC-less environment are bothering these guys what advice would you give them?

How would they outsource production or fabrication without large capital?

Can they sell their device for cash and then produce on demand?

I'm asking because once in a while, I read about smart creations from different African nations. In the interviews, a common complaint is "If we can get a sponsor..." And that's where their story ends.

Note: African esp. West African transactions is heavily cash based. So crowdfunding is out of the question?

Actually, East Africa has a vibrant startup and investment scene for both local and global investors. See, for example, http://ventureburn.com/2017/11/everything-you-need-to-know-a.... It is worth looking into for talent and opportunities.

Yes, absolutely! And everyone in Uganda (and Kenya) has a mobile phone, and a lot of people use them for payments since banking isn't universal there, and mobile payments have emerged as a core mechanism for the secure transfer of funds between people (and also e.g. payments to businesses). The article hints at this by saying the test results are "ready to be shared to a mobile phone in a minute". Lots of people focus on Nigeria when talking about the startup scene in Africa, but I rather think it's East Africa that is in a better position to foster a tech industry.

As a South African, I find it quite interesting how vibrant East and West African tech scenes are... it’s very promising.

South Africa is moribund by comparison.

Also mobile payment are not as widespread. When I was in PTA 2017, the market I went to just started using zapper and that other similar service. This year I've even seen menlyn mall stores advertise accepting them

> And worries about production, commercialization and raising funds in a VC-less environment are bothering these guys what advice would you give them?

Isn't that what stock markets are for?

Of course on a board owned by Ycombinator this is not the most common opinion, but VCs are not the only way to a successful company. Loans, public funding (national and international), crowdfunding, are all options. You can also produce on demand and have a slightly higher price.

For things like malaria treatments, there are tons of international funds, public and private. I mean, one of the biggest, the Gates foundation, has plenty of funds for this kind of programs.

Also, a lot of people overestimate the cost of outsourcing manufacturing. A few plane tickets and a few weeks of hostel in Shenzhen with the good people will put you on track to manufacture many devices and probably enough for the 1.0 version that you will sell in a volume of mere thousands.

You don't need millions of dollars and volumes of millions. Not anymore.

>>And worries about production, commercialization and raising funds in a VC-less environment are bothering these guys what advice would you give them?

Call Bill Gates /his foundation if he hasn't called you already. You'll walk out rich and with the satisfaction that you're saving tens of million lives.

Here's a video of it in action. It looks like a finger print scanner connected to a phone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p31LN6IyIrY

This is a pulse oximeter.

I presume it's the logic that goes along with the pulse oximeter that is making the test important.

It is. I'm afraid I'll have to side with the cynics until further info is give on it's principles of operation.

The Plasmodium parasite doesn't seem to have any special characteristics (ie size, spectral response) that would make it detectable by such a device. You can skip the sample size issue by assuming the diagnostic will run for hours or days, but I don't see any theoretical foundation this device could be based on.

Also the obsession of the website with the smartphone interface is kind of sketchy and makes it look (more) like a scam to me.

Edit: I looked further into it, the price is given by the royal academy of engineering. Taken from their website [1]:

" Gitta wins the first prize of UK £25,000 (124 million Ugandan shillings). At an awards ceremony in Nairobi, Kenya on 13 June 2018, four finalists from across sub-Saharan Africa delivered presentations, before Africa Prize judges and a live audience voted for the most promising engineering innovation."

Which means that a live audience of non-technical people were involved in the choice, and, to my opinion, from the rest of the content, this is a feel-good kind of competition with soft goals like promoting innovation and training young people, not the kind of competition that awards working ideas.

[1] https://www.raeng.org.uk/news/news-releases/2018/june/uganda...

The (short) article makes it clear enough that they aren't targeting the plasmodium directly:

Its red beam can detect changes in the colour, shape and concentration of red blood cells - all of which are affected by malaria.

So that particular line of cynicism is more illiterate than it is cynical.

What's wrong with him expressing his skepticism?! And what makes you entitled to express harsh opinions?!

Theranos was also looking at only tiny amounts of blood drawn from a finger prick. And everyone was on that bandwagon, as you are now. And telling the others to shut-up and not dare to "wrong-think".

I think the difference here is that the person they're responding to doesn't seem to have read the article they were being cynical towards, otherwise they would have immediately realized their source of skepticism was directly addressed. I think you can forgive them for being harsh.

It is a valid point. But his skepticism is still warranted. Theranos was also masquerading as very scientific and was full of laurels. No difference! The undercurrent is this: "do not dare to express doubts on this African-based invention, because otherwise you are a racist."

That's why I objected to the "harsh" tone. It is an application of PC thinking.

You keep saying Theranos. Are you of the opinion that we should treat all technical startup founders as probable criminals? I think where Theranos investors failed was when they confused media hype with due diligence. I'm perfectly ok to live in a society where imprudent investors get occasionally burned, if the hype can also put the spotlight on real, non-criminal founders that would have no chance otherwise.

This is far from getting funded, it's a technical concept and we have absolutely no ability or relevant information upon which to call it a fraud.

The above poster explicitly responded to one specific line of skepticism and is not telling them to give up all skepticism.

You are the only one trying to make this about "PC thinking".

The OP said "I'll side with the cynics" and then justified this by describing how they thought the device would operate — by detecting the plasmodium itself — and how they thought it was impossible.

The article, however, explains how the actual proposed means of operation is based on measuring actual symptoms of the illness — observable changes to the red blood cells — which is at least somewhat compatible with the mechanics of a pulse oximeter, and, therefore, not entirely unreasonable.

The tone was harsh not because of the cynicism, but because said cynicism was based on a concern that wouldn't even have been there if the OP had RTFA.

This is in the really early stages and needs lots more proof. Plenty of reason to be skeptical of it.

But I would say that the bandwagon jumping is where everyone that makes any claim about a medical device is being compared to the billion dollar fraudsters, even if they have not brought the claim to market or committed any fraud.

I wonder if it works similar to this thing described in 2015 from Rice university.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newscientist.com/article/dn...

It works by pulsing energy into a vein in a person’s wrist or earlobe. The laser’s wavelength doesn’t harm human tissue, but is absorbed by hemozoin – waste crystals that are produced by the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum when it feeds on blood.

The obsession with smartphones is understandable when one considers the situation in developing countries: Smartphones are ubiquitous, they provide phone, TV and radio to people who did not have any of this.

I currently live in North Africa and if developing anything for this market I'd do "phones first, tablets second" and not even bother with a desktop version.

Interesting, wonder if this can substitute for a blood test, my mum often complained that blood tests (using needles) were hard for my grandma because her arteries/veins aren't easily spottable and bring a lot of hassle to an old lady.

It is probably mean-spirited of me, but the first thing that passed through my mind after reading this article is "like Theranos, except in Africa". Hopefully, I'm wrong, and this will be an amazing game-changing medical device that saves many lives.

It would be mean-spirited to want that to be the case, it’s somewhere on the skeptical-cynical spectrum to think it’s likely. Don’t be so hard on yourself.

Maybe. However the idea of Theranos was it would replace tests you were going to do anyway. It needed to be just as good.

In some contexts a less invasive, easier to do, or just plain cheaper test can make sense for screening even if it's not good enough to replace your other tests. So there's a middle ground between "replaces blood tests for malaria" and useless.

My pathologist friend was telling me that because machines are still very bad at figuring out if cells from a smear might be cancer but very good at figuring out if a sample has HPV fragments they've switched to letting the machines check samples for HPV and then, since cervical cancer is almost invariably caused by HPV a human looks at the smears for the HPV positive patients to search for cancer. Humans aren't great at this either, but this approach means each individual worker spends more time looking at the smears that actually might have cancer, so hopefully that lets them do a better job.

I thought the exact same thing but from an optimistic perspective: let's show Holmes how real scientists, real entrepreneurs practice their craft.

That would be an awesome outcome! Also, it occurs to me that by being far away from a hotbed of hype for investment, the chances of it being looked at uncritically are less. So hopefully it will be a good comparison.

Theranos sold bogus test results to hundreds of thousands of people:

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2018/06/0...

Understand the shade you are throwing!

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