IDAC 1.0 Disease Surveillance System

 My solution is an Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD)-Short Code surveillance system that equips local health practitioners to report confirmed COVID-19 cases and other future outbreaks/ pandemics in real time to the national Centre for Disease Controls of different countries (especially developing countries) and to World Health Organization (W.H.O.). My solution is well suited for the African continent where there is insufficient internet access because it functions without internet (works in any kind of mobile phone). My solution will ensure access to a coordinated and real time data on the incidence of infectious diseases that will help various health organizations in various countries to respond appropriately. Furthermore, it will enable the W.H.O to enhance their public health surveillance capabilities in developing countries like Africa which posed great difficulty during the peak of the COVID-19 cases in 2020.  

The major challenge in the handling of disease outbreaks/pandemics in Africa is the lack of a coordinated public health surveillance system that adequately takes into consideration the unique challenges of Africa (e.g. poor internet access, low educational status, poverty and high population residing in rural areas). These challenges have led to a lot of inaccuracy, inconsistency, and incoherence in monitoring the incidence and prevalence of diseases by relevant public/global health organizations like the W.H.O and Centres for Disease Control in different African countries. In addition, it will lead to a poor and uncoordinated global health response to the disease and lack of real will result increased mortality and morbidity from the disease. During the pandemic, the United Nations report of 2020 stated that up to 50% of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Africa were undocumented and not reported due to the poor surveillance in the continent. Furthermore, the W.H.O. report of 2020 expressed difficulty in conducting a comprehensive public health surveillance of COVID-19 due to inability of their surveillance tools to address the peculiar challenges.

My solution is an Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD)-Short Code surveillance system that equips local health practitioners to report confirmed COVID-19 cases or other disease outbreaks and other future outbreaks/ pandemics in real time to the national Centre for Disease Controls of different countries (especially developing countries) and to World Health Organization (W.H.O.) with the aid of a mobile phone (works in smart and non-smart phones without internet). Through my solution, health care practitioners in primary health centres can send information about every positive COVID-19 cases or other diseases (e.g. Ebola or yellow fever) using designated USSD codes (e.g. *556*2#) once the test is confirmed. This information is fed into a database (secured in a cloud-based system) in real time and can be accessed by the World Health Organization and the ministries of health of countries where the data is coming from. Through this medium, adequate surveillance and monitoring of disease outbreaks are done for effective and coordinated response to the disease. Currently, the pilot phase of my solution is being implemented in Nigeria but it is scalable to link data from other countries to a central database moderated by the World Health Organization.

My solution mostly impacts the lives of residents of rural and sub-urban regions of Africa predominantly characterised by poor internet access, poor health care infrastructure, insufficient health workforce and poor road networks. Furthermore, these challenges make this target population more susceptible to the fatalities of disease outbreaks/pandemics such as COVID-19 resulting in high mortality, high morbidity, and poor public health response. Through my solution, cases in these regions will be reported in real time irrespective of the challenges mentioned above and will enable the public health authorities to effectively monitor and record the cases and provide adequate response to the disease outbreak. The motivation behind my solution rose from the frequent complaints by health care providers in rural regions and centres for disease control concerning poor surveillance of disease outbreaks in these regions. Also, the pilot testing of my solution was done in rural areas of Nigeria to ensure that it effectively addresses the needs of the people in the region especially as it concerns health security.  

My solution aligns with one of the focal points of the Challenge which is to strengthen disease surveillance especially in developing regions like Africa. My solution enables health care providers especially those in rural and sub urban regions to effectively report cases of disease outbreaks in real time despite the socioeconomic challenges faced in those regions. Additionally, through this solution, Ministries of Health (Centres of Disease Control) in various countries and the World health Organization will be adequately strengthened to respond to disease outbreaks more effectively.

My solution is currently in the pilot stage having developed a product that has been tested by over 100 health practitioners in primary health centres within the rural and sub urban regions of North Central Nigeria (Nassarawa and Niger States). After the testing, feedbacks from the health care practitioners were considered and utilised to fine-tune my solution for better effectiveness. Furthermore, my team and I have held meetings with the World Health Organization (W.H.O), African Region regarding the adoption and implementation of my solution in various countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Currently, the W.H.O is working with the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control to integrate my solution into their already existing data surveillance system to strengthen it.  

My solution is innovative because it leverages on the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data System to boost surveillance of disease outbreak across developing countries like Africa without the use of internet. Hence it is flexible and suitable for use in rural and sub-urban regions that lack access to internet and basic infrastructure. Also, my solution functions on both smart and non-smart phones and as such can be used on any available mobile phone in the region. Additionally, my solution is cost effective to develop and scale thereby addresses the challenge of paucity of funds characterised by ministries of health of developing countries like in Africa. Furthermore, it can be readily integrated and collaborated with other existing solutions in different countries.

My solution lays the framework or foundation by which an affordable, robust, cutting edge and effective surveillance system for Africa can be developed because my technology is widely known (previously used in other sectors outside health care), meets the need of the African continent and can be easily scaled to connect all the 54 countries of Africa to an integrated disease surveillance system for a coordinated global health response. Currently, the Nigerian and Cameroonian governments are considering using my solution to integrate and make the surveillance system in both countries more effective in preparation for the next outbreak in the region.

My solution serves about 200,000 people in the North Central region of Nigeria currently. Though the ministry of health in Nigeria is in the final stages of adopting my solution for use nationally so as to serve about 200,000,000 within the next 1 year. Within the next 5 years, the goal is for my solution to serve at least 3 countries in West Africa estimated at 300,000,000 people. 

My key performance indicator is to measure the number of regions where my solution is in use, the number of countries where it is being used, The population of the people in a region covered by my solution. The number of positive feedbacks from government, non-government agencies and the users of my solution over a period of time.

In my organization, 4 people are working on this solution full time, 6 people are working on a part time basis while 2 people are hired contractors.

Firstly, my team members were born and grew up in sub-urban and rural regions of Africa where they had first-hand experience of the difficulties of poor health surveillance systems in those regions. Additionally, 70% of my team members have health care background (have a first degree in Pharmacy, Public Health, Medicine, Nursing) and hence understand the challenges faced by agencies in the various health organizations to develop an effective surveillance system that helps address disease outbreaks in the continent of Africa. Also, 4 of my team members are from different countries in West and East Africa which is ideal for my organization to scale up in those countries in terms of provision of input on the peculiar technicalities in their respective countries. Furthermore, my team provides a blend of health care professionals, business experts and Information Technology experts which are the key skills we require in the development, implementation, and sustainability of my solution. 

During recruitment, I ensure that diversity is one of the key concepts that influences our hiring process. Hence, we employ people from diverse background, ethnic groups, race and gender who can contribute significantly from diverse perspectives towards the actualization of organizational goals. Also, my belief in social inclusion made me to collaborate and offer internship opportunities to the disabled community through partner organization so as to give them a platform to contribute significantly to the decision-making process of our organization. Within the next 5 years, my organization aims to have an equal representation of every major ethnic group, gender, religion, and sexual orientation as members of staff in my organization. I plan to achieve to achieve this by allocating more recruitment slots to certain population that are under represented while promoting those who are already contributing significantly to the growth of the organization.

I am applying to solve to join the outstanding Solve community where I can build networks, relationships to develop my solution and build my organization to global standards. Also, through this application, I intend to tap into the MIT innovations that will enable me undergo mentorship and experience to build better innovative health solutions to tackle the health outbreaks in the future. Also, the grant prize will be ideal to enable me scale my work to other regions of Nigeria.

Technology and innovation are always evolving. One of the goals of my organization is to be the biggest provider of digital health solutions in Africa and through partnerships with institutions such as the M.I.T., I can continuously evolve, innovate, and develop better health solutions to solve the diverse health challenges facing the African continent. Also, as my organization grows, there is need for increased human resource management to maintain the positive trajectory of organizational growth. Through mentorship and training, the competence and capacity of my organizational staff will be enhanced in addition to improved “technical know-how” in recruiting the right personnel that will contribute significantly to the growth of my organization. As a business entity, my organization needs mentorship on the understanding of global markets or continental markets to enable me to position my product towards maximum impact and revenue generation.

I would like to partner with technology-based Organizations like M.I.T in the areas of health care digitalization and innovation. I would also like to partner with Health Start-ups in the United States to obtain the necessary expertise to grow my organization to achieve global status and also collaborate towards addressing global health challenges.