An innovative chat-bot that helps patients and doctors diagnose diseases ranging from malaria to diabetes has become the first health app to launch in Swahili.
Developed by Ada Health, the app relies on artificial intelligence, large medical databases and personalised responses to assess an individual’s symptoms, suggest a cause and recommend the next stage of treatment.
The smartphone chat-bot is already used by roughly eight million people in more than 130 countries across the globe – published in languages including English, French and Spanish.
But it has now become the first AI health application to launch in Swahili, a language spoken by almost 100 million people across East Africa – predominantly in Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya.
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According to Hila Azadzoy, the managing director of Ada’s global health initiative, the expansion will help tackle a shortage of doctors and nurses in the region, where countries have fewer than one physician per 1,000 people on average.
“Globally there is a huge shortfall of 12 million health workers and the numbers are rising,” she told The Telegraph. “And you can really see this shortage in Sub Saharan Africa. The app is part of the solution – not by replacing health workers, but supporting them and improving access to health information.
“It we look at the enormous challenge we’re facing in healthcare delivery, we fundamentally believe that technology can improve access without compromising medical care – digital health will play an important role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals,” Ms Azadzoy added.
The new version of Ada, which is free to download, was developed in collaboration with the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences in Tanzania and the Swiss NGO Fondation Botnar.
As well as the Swahili translation, Ada says the app has been adjusted to factor in conditions and symptoms that are more common in East Africa – for instance infectious diseases like malaria and HIV.
“There is a significant healthcare shortage in East Africa and it will be very difficult to address this just by training more health workers and doctors,” said Dr Nahya Salim, head of pediatrics at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences in Dar Es Salaam.
“[One way] we can solve this problem and make healthcare accessible to every family is by making use of the latest technology,” she added.
Although Ada is also looking to launch localised adaptations of the app in other regions, for instance South Asia, the company said that East Africa was a “good context” because of an existing reliance on mobile technology.
“East Africa has some of the highest connectivity rates in Sub-Saharan Africa,” said Ms Azadzoy. “For instance, mobile banking is already heavily rolled out in the region and there are really promising projections for the further increases in smartphone use.
“So there’s a lot of potential and huge opportunities for AI to be used to help improve access to medical advice for patients and clinicians,” she said.
Source: Telegraph
