There’s recently been a rise in the development of apps that can help to cure various illnesses, keep a track of our health or monitor our recovery, which makes perfect sense if you consider just how much of the world’s population now has a mobile device at hand.
Around 29,000 children die every day from illnesses that are largely curable if they only had access to the medicine and care they so desperately needed at the time.
Malaria, a mosquito-borne infectious disease, is a particular problem amongst young people. Last year the tabloids were plastered with stories about Cheryl Cole’s experience of malaria when she travelled to Tanzania, when really the disease isn’t a one-off but a sad reality for the million people who die from it every year.
Now, you may think that the last thing we’d turn to in order to fight this kind of disease is a mobile application, but it’s not that absurd considering around 77% of the global population now have access to a mobile device and developers are being more adventurous and innovative than ever before.
There are already tests in place that are designed to detect malaria however they’re pretty inaccurate, which is why the Life Lens project could really revolutionise the way people are diagnosed and eventually cured of the disease.
The Life Lens concept works by characterising anemia, visual cell rupture and visualise parasites from a small blood sample. It sounds fairly complicated, but according to the Life Lens blog, the procedure is actually pretty simple and the five steps are outlined as:
1. Draw blood
2. Place on slide to create smear
3. Image with Lifelens
4. Receive diagnosis and SMS export to server
5. Disinfect slide
The team behind the app are confident that the system can be used by anyone regardless of language, location or medical training and hope to ship devices out to the most desperate areas.
This isn’t the first time phones and specifically apps have been used to promote health and wellbeing, like iHealth’s BP3 Blood Pressure Monitor or the OnTrack diabetes monitoring app.
Although our mobiles can do everything from help us to cook to control or finances or meet a date, it’s great to see that innovative and talented minds are also working to combat large, global issues that arguably doesn’t get enough attention or publicity at the moment.
Becca Caddy is a BitchBuzz Tech columnist and freelance writer. She is also the UK editor of US-based tech blog Popgadget.net. You can follow her @beccacaddy or read her blog beccacaddy.com
Screenshot via iTunes