Getting the diagnosis of pneumonia wrong can be fatal. According to UNICEF, pneumonia kills half a million children under the age of five each year in sub-Saharan Africa. In order to change this situation on the continent, the inventors of Uganda Turyabagye e Koburongo began to formulate ideas on how to deal with the problem in progress. They consulted medical experts to understand the specific symptoms of the disease.
After several researches, with the help of his tutor Mwikirize Cosmas Makerere University in Uganda, Turyabagye and his team Mama-Ope, an intelligent biomedical coat that rapidly increases the accuracy and speed of disease diagnosis.
Mama-Ope, translated into Portuguese which means "Hope for the Mother" is a jacket that measures body temperature, heart rate and lung condition in order to detect pneumonia.
How does it work?
The technology is similar to a stethoscope. It extends throughout the chest and the side of a patient's body. He researches specific points in the lungs for symptoms of pneumonia, characterized by a swelling of the lungs caused by infection.
According to one of the inventors of this device, the jacket mitigates almost all human error and can diagnose pneumonia three to four times faster than a physician.
The jacket is connected via Bluetooth to a smartphone application, which sends, records and analyzes the medical data, ready for a health professional to make a more accurate diagnosis.
