Malaria Diagnostic Research in Rural Uganda
Improve the capability of healthcare providers in Uganda’s secondary health center to diagnose common diseases in a reliable, timly and affordable way.
Client:
TU Delft
Role:
Team Member
Year:
2017
Background
Uganda's healthcare system follows a tiered diagnosis and treatment model, but it faces widespread challenges such as a shortage of medical professionals and limited access to medication. Our team aimed to address this gap by starting with malaria diagnosis — the most prevalent disease and need — using low-cost mobile phone microscopes. We aimed to contribute to improving the overall healthcare landscape in Uganda.
Main Challenges
How design can help in improving the medical outcomes given the extremely low resource settings.
Solution
The final design includes service, product and application as a system.
An assistive preparation guide for preparing the blood sample;
The reversed mobile phone camera as an optical imaging module;
A digital application as a presentation carrier for blood smears and the offline diagnostic approach with a built-in AI algorithm.
Key takeaways
Field research and testing often involve unexpected challenges and rarely follow a linear path as planned. Adapting strategies and actions based on local context is essential to gaining deeper insights into how design performs in real-world settings.