The Ouut Spotlights Medtech Africa, Nigerian Health-tech With Focus On Non-Communicable Diseases
When American athlete and swimmer, Michael Phelps said, “The problem with heart disease is that the first symptom is often fatal,” he definitely knew that the heart would function till it can’t have it anymore, with no complaints, no notice, no symptoms till it is about to give up.
Cardiovascular diseases are only one of the non-communicable diseases the human race face, and it is closer to home when it is discovered that the black race has more tendency to have non-communicable (cardiovascular) diseases.
According to The World Heart Federation, In 2019, more than 1 million deaths were attributable to Cardiovascular Diseases, CVD, in sub-Saharan Africa, which constituted 5.4% of all global CVD-related deaths and 13% of all deaths in Africa. This life-threatening disease has been a challenge that medicine has been tackling, especially because there are no early symptoms. This is exactly what Medtech Africa offers. a platform to detect early signs of non-communicable diseases.
Recently, The ouut in an interview with Medtech Africa discussed its journey from being just a consultation firm in Ibadan to being a grant-winning medical support health-tech firm on its way to Abuja.
What Is Medtech Africa
Medtech Africa is a tech solution platform that supports medical decision-making. The health tech focuses on cardiovascular and non-communicable diseases (High Blood Pressure, Asthma, Heart Failure, etc.) Through Medtech Africa, doctors can access patient health past and current vitals, treating them according to the accurate readings the platform will provide.
Through a single artificial intelligence-supported mobile application, accurate presentation of patients health is provided from CVD monitoring devices.
Speaking with Co-founder and CEO of Medtech Africa, Nelson Igbiriki, he states, that his startup is using its various platform to educate the community about the building epidemic of non-communicable diseases.” There is not enough information about such chronic diseases as hypertension, how to manage your health, and how to prevent terminus diseases like heart attack or stroke and the rest of other non-communicable diseases, it is becoming the second leading cause of death in Nigeria and one of the leading causes of death globally as there are about 18.6 million CVD deaths yearly.”
Co-founded by Medical Engineer, Nelson Igbiriki and Back and Frontend software developer Benjamin Oni, Medtech Africa started off as a medical machinery installation firm, starting off in Ilorin, operating in Ibadan, then moving to Abuja. The start-up then not being tech-enabled, would on-demand, install and maintain CT and MRI scan machinery for Hospitals and Cardiology specialist centres.
Medtech Africa So Far
At the beginning of 2022, both proprietors decided to fully focus on their initiative, therefore, making it tech-enabled. The health tech now has a website and mobile applications which users can access without restriction to location or time.
Within the period of luncheon, to date, Medtech has had a few successes. It had partaken in the Novartis Africa Health-Tech Hub Accelerator program, where it presented its centralized platform to detect CVDs in patients and the ability to present accurate patient data that can be accessed easily, therefore, allowing medical personnel to proscribe adequate medical attention. The startup’s presentation won Twenty Thousand US dollars ($20,000) in grants. The grant went into upgrading the website and funding its detective tool.
The startup also were also one of the winners of the 2021 Techpoint pitch storm event. The event earned them One million naira, yet the startup has made it known that it is looking forward to raising pre-seeds to support its heavy initiative and to expand its offering.
When giving insight into the health tech intention in the ecosystem, Nelson stated, ” Our goal is to be the main point in cardiovascular health, we envision ourselves as providing a solution that is tailored to solve cardiovascular diseases in Africa. We have to focus and develop for Africa because whatever system is working in the US cannot work here in Africa because there are still a lot of tools they have access to that we do not have. Africa is yet to have enough education about CVD so we want to provide a solution that helps us manage cardiovascular diseases. Our goal is to become the leader in this space on the continent, and in the next ten years reduce the mortality rate for this disease to 40%. To provide instances that this case will never get to heart attack, or stroke, as medical personnel will leverage on provided medical data and be able to intervene as soon as possible.”
He further stated, “We want to help people live a life that is fulfilled, people healthy with their children at old age, which heart diseases often deny people of. Our goal is to preserve you so you can have that dream become a reality.”
A health tech on its way to leading and changing heart diagnosis in Africa, with feats already accomplished in the ecosystem. We are sitting tight, hoping to spotlight Medtech Africa again in the next few years.