Malaria Rapid Diagnostic Test Kit Needed

It is not every day that a friend of my dad asks for help in saving children in developing countries, but knowing my volunteer work and that I am passionate about health care and saving one life at a time, particularly children, it was fitting that my professor dad thought I could help. Well, I need some help from my Twitter followers and blog readers to help me with this one. Simply Twitter me or add blog comments if you know an effective malaria rapid diagnostic test kit out there. By the way this is the letter for help with the malaria test kit:

Hi Prof,
1. In Africa 30% of under-5 children die of fever which is a symptom shared by malaria and pneumonia (or acute respiratory tract infections, ARI). Most often fever is treated at home with anti-malaria because ever case of fever is assumed to be due to malaria. But this is not always the case. It is important to be able to distinguish between malaria induced fever and other-induced fever.
A] . There is a device called RDT (rapid diagnostic test kit) for detecting malaria. It does not require microscope. A complete RDT kit contains a lancet for pricking the finger to get a small drop of blood which is placed in a groove on the RDT cartridge and observed for 15 minutes. The movement of the blood in the cartridge determines if one has malaria or not. It is 99% sensitive. No microscope, no electricity. If one has fever, it could be malaria or ARI-induced. So if one has fever and RDT is negative, then the cause of the fever is ARI.
B]. ARI can be determined by a simple device. Count how many times the chest of the child goes up and down as the child breathes. If more than 40 per minute, it signifies ARI for someone older than 12 months but if more than 50 per minute in age 12months to 60 months it is ARI.
2. In the wild and without a doctor one should be able to handle these killer diseases in children called fever, even in the absence of a doctor.
The opportunities for doing without doctors are there
C] Robotics device can be produced that will give instructions at the press of different buttons (like an answering machine) to the user on how to take the blood and safely test for malaria and also measure the breathing rate. A software or program can be developed that uses logic to lead the user to test and give appropriate treatment for fever. A robotic device that I need will (a) be programmed to give the instructions (b) have a SIM card or device that can send an SOS to a doctor situated 100km away in case of emergency (c) recording device that will store information between it and the user for later review (d) run on battery and have possibility for improving it to run on solar power later (e) language selection option (f) small (3″ x 2″) and light enough to fit into a FEVERKIT
D] a FEVERKIT is a small box (the smaller the better. I am thinking at the moment of a box of dimensions 2″ Height, 8″ Length, 5″ Breadth. The FEVERKIT will have (a) embedded in it the robotic device and control buttons, power source and speaker (b) replaceable RDT position that can contain 10 RDT kits complete with finger prick device (c) timer for taking the breathing rate (d) part for storing septrin –medicine for 10 ARI treatments and also a position for storing 10 treatments doses of anti-malaria tablets.

Could you ask if MyDocHub knows anyone who could develop the program for me and secondly anyone that could make a hardware to which the other components could be embedded. If there is a place where I can get the robotic device built and programmed then integrate it into a large box of the description I just made I would be delighted to speak to the person.

Cheers

Comments

5 Comments so far

Gary Baumgarten | 25 February 2009, 21:52
Richard Tren, director of Africa Fighting Malaria will be my guest on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com at 5 PM New York time Tuesday March 3.

Please go to http//www.garybaumgaten.com to talk to him.

Thanks,

Gary
Gary Baumgarten | 25 February 2009, 21:54
That’s http://www.garybaumgarten.com … can’t spell my own name!
Laura J. Gray | 23 March 2009, 13:05
As I was reading your blog, I found out that you need some help when it comes to rapid diagnostic test kit particularly for malaria detection. Try visiting this http://www.rapidtest.com for you can find what you need.
Laura J. Gray | 23 March 2009, 13:06
As I was reading your blog, I found out that you need some help when it comes to rapid diagnostic test kit particularly for malaria detection. Try visiting this http://www.diagnosticautomation.com to find what you need.
prispartlow | 19 May 2009, 13:03
.,How i wish I help you look for malaria rapid diagnostic kit. But i asure you that I will let you know if I found one.Goodluck!