Device could improve anaemia detection in developing regions

Dubbed HemoGlobe, the device is designed to convert the existing mobile phones of community health workers into so-called ‘prick-free’ systems for detecting and reporting anaemia, which is said to contribute to 100,000 maternal deaths and 600,000 newborn deaths annually.

In places where medical care is easily accessible, doctors routinely test pregnant women for anaemia and prescribe treatment, including routine iron supplementation.

However, in developing regions where medical help is not always nearby, the condition may go undetected. Community health workers with limited training do, however, serve these areas.

‘The team members realised that every community health worker already carries a powerful computer in their pocket: their cell phone,’ said Soumyadipta Acharya, an assistant research professor in Johns Hopkins’ Department of Biomedical Engineering and the project’s faculty advisor and principal investigator. ‘So we didn’t have to build a computer for our screening device and we didn’t have to build a display. Our low-cost device will use the existing cell phones of health workers to estimate and report haemoglobin levels.’