Matibabu
PAIN
Africa carries a disproportionately high share of the global malaria burden. Due to its presentation, malaria’s symptoms often mimic other diseases, and it is often under-diagnosed in areas where incidence is rare. Conversely, in endemic areas many people diagnosed with malaria may have the indicative parasite loads, but are in fact suffering from a different disease or condition. The presence of parasites doesn’t necessarily indicate disease and many people in high-transmission areas learn to tolerate parasitemia.
Current Gold standards have their own limitation. Microscopy is labor intensive and the detection threshold is limited to good quality blood films, highly trained microscopists & high powered microscopes. On the other hand, RDTs cannot provide a quantitative measure of parasitemia
Opportunity
Matibabu is a pocket-sized hardware device that uses combination of a beam of red-light and magnetism to detect malaria parasites in tissues. The technology has the potential to revolutionize the diagnosis of malaria because it is simple to use, non-invasive, low cost and highly sensitive way for rapidly screening hundreds of people per day. There is an opportunity to bring more partners on board who can help to further refine the product to a “market ready” state
Global Impact
Offering a cost-effective rapid early diagnosis of malaria to reduce the amount of medication, duration of treatment and number of people suffering severe effects from malaria infection.
