Digital Diagnostics for Africa Network

在非洲，可治愈和可治愈的疾病造成大量疾病和大量死亡。疟疾等传染病是最大的杀手之一。这些疾病不仅给受感染者造成严重的健康问题，而且给个人和社区造成重大的财政负担，阻碍整个国家的经济和社会发展。最贫穷和最边缘化的社区通常受影响最严重，因此这些疾病加剧了与地理、性别和种族有关的不平等。目前在最贫困地区应对传染病的战略依赖于基本的诊断和治疗方法，例如依赖于一些临床特征（如发烧，呼吸困难或苍白）和很少的简单测试来决定某人应该接受的治疗。这种方法是必要的，因为附近很少有诊断实验室提供全面的测试，即使有，他们的服务往往过于昂贵。不幸的是，简单的诊断方法往往导致不正确的诊断，并提供很少的数据，从中学习如何改进。错误的诊断可能意味着给予错误的治疗，导致长期患病或死亡，同时鼓励过度使用抗生素或抗疟疾药物等治疗方法，这可能会导致对这些药物的耐药性。这个问题的革命性解决方案是开发新一代数字诊断测试，即使在最偏远的社区也可以在护理点使用。这些诊断测试不仅比目前的替代品更准确和更快，而且可能节省成本。数字诊断有可能通过将先进实验室的典型精度与可通过现代智能手机提供的便携性，连接性，分析和支持联系起来来改变这种情况。这意味着，只要经过最少的培训，各种医疗工作者就可以随时随地进行检测。例如，社区的医疗工作者从儿童指尖采集的一滴血，可以应用于由移动的手机电池供电的微型芯片上，15-20分钟内就可以得出诊断结果。结果通过蓝牙从微芯片传输到智能手机，因此不需要互联网连接。如果检测到“疟疾”，该设备可以通知医务人员疟疾的类型和正确的治疗方法。智能手机还可以通过移动的网络将结果和位置数据发送到远程计算机系统，该系统可以确定该地区是否存在异常高的疟疾水平，如果是，则通知国家疟疾控制计划，需要额外的资源来应对疫情，以免疫情恶化。因此，儿童受益于正确的治疗，社区受益于干预措施，卫生当局受益于能够将现有资源分配给最需要或最能发挥作用的地方。实时数据还使国际组织能够制定更有效的政策来应对疟疾并分配资金。在我们的提案中，我们正在建立一个由具有不同技能和专业知识的科学家组成的网络，将他们与生产诊断产品的商业公司以及直接在非洲国家工作的组织联系起来，将新的疾病控制工具和战略付诸实践。该网络将计划如何最好地开发新的数字诊断设备，以解决非洲的健康问题。该网络将通过专门规划开发一种新的疟疾数字诊断测试设备并绘制实施路线图来测试其战略。

Preventable and treatable diseases cause a huge amount of illness and a huge number of deaths in Africa. Infectious diseases, like malaria, are some of the biggest killers. Not only do these diseases cause major health problems for those infected, they are also a major financial burden to individuals and communities, and they hinder economic and societal development for whole countries. The poorest and most marginalized communities are usually the worst affected, and so these diseases exacerbate inequalities associated with geography, gender and ethnicity. Current strategies to tackle infectious diseases in the poorest settings rely on rudimentary approaches to diagnosis and treatment, such as reliance on a few clinical features (like fever, difficulty breathing or pallor) and very few simple tests to decide the treatment someone should receive. This approach is necessary because there are rarely diagnostic laboratories nearby to provide comprehensive testing, and even if there are, their services are often too expensive. Unfortunately, the simple methods of diagnosis often result in incorrect diagnosis, and provide little data from which to learn how to improve. A wrong diagnosis can mean the wrong treatment is given, resulting in prolonged illness or death, whilst at the same time encouraging overuse of some treatments like antibiotics or anti-malaria drugs, which can drive resistance to these drugs.A revolutionary solution to this problem is to develop a new generation of digital diagnostic tests which can be used at the point-of-care in even the hardest-to-reach communities. These diagnostic tests are not only more accurate and faster than current alternatives but potentially cost saving. Digital diagnostics have the potential to transform the situation by linking the precision typical of an advanced laboratory with the portability, connectivity, analysis and support that can be provided through a modern smart phone. This means tests can be administered anywhere and anytime by a wide range of healthcare workers with minimal training.For example, a drop of blood collected from the tip of the finger of child by a health worker in their community, could be applied to a tiny microchip powered by a mobile phone battery, and within 15-20 minutes a result could be available to make a diagnosis. The results are transmitted from the microchip to a smartphone via Bluetooth so no internet connection is required. If "Malaria" is detected, the device can notify the healthcare worker of the type of malaria and the correct treatment. The smartphone could also send the result and location data via the mobile network to a remote computer system, which could determine whether there is an unusually high level of malaria in that area and, if so, notify the national Malaria control program that extra resources are required to tackle an outbreak before it gets worse. Thus the child benefits from the right treatment, the community benefits from the intervention, and the health authorities benefit from being able to allocate the resources available to where they are most needed or will work best. The real-time data also allows international organizations to make more effective policies to tackle malaria and allocate funding.In our proposal we are developing a network of scientists with diverse skills and expertise, joining them together with commercial companies that manufacture diagnostics, and organizations who work directly in African countries putting new disease control tools and strategies into practice. This network will plan how best to develop new digital diagnostic devices to tackle health problems in Africa. The network will test its strategies by specifically planning the development of a new digital diagnostic test device for malaria and drawing out a roadmap to its implementation.