Fighting Malaria

Nearly half of world population is at risk, 229 million affected, 409 000 deaths every year of which 67% are children that will not witness their 5:th birthday. No, we are not talking about world war III but may be one of the oldest diseases on earth: Malaria

We propose an offline AI diagnostic tool in the form of a mobile application to detect and count Malaria parasites and white blood cells in digital images of thick blood smears. When infrastructure is available, anonymous patient location will be uploaded to the cloud where real-time malaria maps will be compiled and available to support decision makers.

Our solution will make Malaria diagnosis faster and more reliable. It might also bring health care closer to patients in rural areas. Real-time surveillance of the disease using our map services will make it possible to monitor and predict future outbreaks and prevent them.

We are trying to help solving 2 problems affecting neatly half of world population:

Problem 1: It takes 30 minutes on average for a technician to make a Malaria diagnosis and compute parasitemia with an accuracy ranging between 50%-95% depending on the country. There is also a shortage of technicians. Late or erroneous Malaria diagnosis often lead to health complications, suffering for the patient, higher health care costs and even death.

Problem 2: Many countries heavily impacted by Malaria have weak surveillance systems and can not asses disease distribution and trends which makes it difficult for them to optimize responses and efficiently handle outbreaks. 

Solution to problem 1: A mobile application that uses the camera of a standard mobile phone, mounted on a microscope, to take pictures of thick blood smears. An offline computer vision AI-based algorithm is then applied on the image locally on the phone to detect and count Malaria parasites and white blood cells to compute the parasitemia for the patient. Our solution shortens the diagnostic time from 30 to 2 or 3 minutes with a steady accuracy above 90% and is not reliant on modern infrastructure such as internet nor electricity (a solar cell could charge the phone). More people could be tested accurately and given appropriate treatment increasing their chances for survival and lowering overall health care costs due to fewer complications.

Solution to problem 2: The mobile application will automatically upload anonymous timestamped geographical location of patients to the cloud when internet is available. The geographical data will be then compiled into timestamped disease proliferation maps. These maps could then be used to monitor the real-time proliferation of the disease and give decision maker the necessary tool not only to efficiently handle existing outbreaks but also prevent them giving us a tool to help eradicating Malaria.

Our target population is roughly 4 billion people living mainly sub-Saharian Africa and Asia where Malaria is a prevailing disease. Our solution impacts our target population in 2 levels: Individual and population levels.

Faster and more reliable diagnosis impacts patients on the individual level by increasing survival chances, reducing health complications, physical and psychological suffering and even death. Less complications also reduces health care costs for these individuals and their loved ones who often are not economically fortunate. This will also reduce the suffering on the family level not only on the emotional and psychological plane but also on the economical level since family members must refrain work to take care of the individuals resulting in economical losses for the entire family that might lower their life standard to extreme poverty or even wipe the entire family out.

On the population level, healthier people make healthier communities that contribute to their own wealth and to the nation. By using our real-time Malaria proliferation map services, decision makers have a tool to monitor and predict future outbreaks. This will give them the upper hand in hopefully eradicating the disease in their countries. Multinational organisations will have a tool to track Malaria proliferation across countries an coordinate international efforts to predict, contain and eradicate the outbreaks. Many of these countries are dependent on agriculture. Our Malaria proliferation maps could be used to control irrigation to not facilitate the spread of the disease via irrigation systems.

Our solution aligns with both first and second challenges.

The offline mobile application aligns with the first challenge and will equip primary health care providers with a faster, more reliable and easy to use tool to detect disease outbreaks on site in remote villages with little or no infrastructure available.

The real-time proliferation map service aligns with the second challenge and will give the necessary tool to strengthen the surveillance of the disease spread enabling early warnings and prediction of future outbreaks and hopefully enables decision makers to take the necessary steps to avoid outbreaks and eradicate the disease.

We have a minimal viable product/prototype (MVP) ready to be tested on site in Kenya in the coming months depending on the COVID-19 situation.

We are part of LEAD (https://lead.se/en), the local startup incubator in Linköping (Sweden) where we're getting help building and testing our business model.

We have a good cooperation with the Karolinksa Insitutet (https://ki.se/en) helping us with their valuable Malaria expertise (for ex. testing in Kenya)

There is extensive research in the area of computer vision solutions for Malaria parasite detection aimed for mobile phone applications but still no products available on the market. We want to change that.

Several tools assessing infectious disease spread have long existed and are currently used by epidemiologists to fight pandemics/epidemics. The innovation in our real-time Malaria proliferation map service is the temporal and spacial precision we will offer decision makers. The disease could be monitored in real time with GPS-precision from population level dynamics down to single anonymous individuals offering unique opportunities to fight the disease and hopefully eradicate it.

• Curent number: 0
• In 1 year: 3000-4000 (Current Malaria study in Kenya)
• In 5 years: Hopefully 1-2 billion poeple living in Malaria risc zones in sub-Saharian Africa and asia

Improving health and well-being (no 3 in the UN sustainability goals) is our primary target. We will measure our progress towards that goal by the use of the Malaria proliferation map service. 

The proliferation of the disease will be monitored and predicted by the Malaria proliferation map service which will gives us a measure on whether a more efficient diagnosis using our mobile application and other efforts in some areas have contributed to a decrease in Malaria cases or a containment of an ongoing outbreaks.

The choice of Internet Service Provider (ISP) to host our servers will be entirely based on whether the ISP has a sustainability plan and only if the electricity used is already 100% renewable.

Full time staff: 1

Part-time staff: 2

Hiring: We are in the process of hiring a database engineer that will start in August 2021 (full time position)

Collaboration: We have good collaboration with Karolinkska Institutet but none is employed by us (but still part of our team)

• We have a collaboration with a Malaria expert professor at Karolinka Institute (Stockholm, Sweden) that guides us with his expertise and also helps us to test our solution in the field.
• Our CEO has a M Sc in Applied Physics and an MBA. He has worked as an R&D engineer for the Swedish Defense Research Agency (FOI) and held several manager positions in the automotive industry.
• Our CTO has a Ph. D. and an Engineering License in industrial electronics, a M. Sc. in Physics and Applied Mathematics. He has an experience of almost 20 years in algorithm development in both academia and industry. He has worked in highly skilled industries such as the Automotive, the defense and aerospace industries.
• Our CFO has an Bachelor degree in business economy and is responsible for book-keeping and running the day to day economy of the company.

Women currently account for 33% of our staff and we are trying to improve that.

We are a new company but we try to hire skilled staff that might have been marginalized in the traditional workforce for one reason or another.

We are in the process of hiring a database programmer that has Asperger syndrome for example. We believe in strong and sustainable companies with social responsibilities to the community that provides the infrastructure needed to grow and flourish. 

We want to apply for Solve to get help connecting with the right organisations that are interested in seeing our solution become an off-the-shelf product that helps humanity win the battle against Malaria. Funding is of course a plus but we mostly would like to expand our connections and find buyers.

Testing our solution with as many partners as possible is something we would like to do as well as finding our first clients. Making the right connections will help us enter the market.

• Doctors without borders
• Red Cross
• Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
• UNICEF
• WHO

And/or similar organizations.

Our solution is based on an AI/ML model to detect Malaria parasites in thick blood smears. It is a perfect example on how AI could be used to save lives in the service of humanity. We will use the prize to reach our customers and expand our operations. We will also us the prize money to further develop and improve our product.