PapsAI

22, March 2022 - 08:00 | COVID-19 Health Innovations

PapsAI is a low-cost digital microscope slide scanner and digital health platform that can be used to diagnose cervical cancer in resource-constrained areas.  The platform utilizes an algorithms for segmentation, feature extraction and classifications that were based on online cervical cell datasets. Later, the tool was evaluated with pap smear slides from the pathology unit at Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital. Under the department of Biomedical Sciences and Engineering, PapsAI has been developed for automated diagnosis and classification of cervical cancer from pap smear images. The tool also takes into consideration the patient’s cervical cancer risk factors. A cytopathologist analyses the patient’s cervical cancer risk factors and the tool generates a result on the possibility of cervical cancer. Subsequently, the cytopathologist can upload the pap-smear to segment the image using the developed techniques and extract cell features. The tool can then give the diagnosis and stage of cervical cancer, as per the cervix cell changes from the pap-smear. The automated digital microscope slide scanner helps acquire quick, reliable and high-resolution digital pap-smear images from the pap-smear slides for automated analysis.

Galien Forum Africa: Africa Mobilizes for Global Health Security

07, December 2021 - 14:40 | COVID-19 Health Innovations

On the 10^th of December, Dr Moredreck Chibi, the Regional Adviser on Innovation at the WHO Africa regional office took part in a session on innovations and ethics for global health security during the Galien Forum Africa. This session was motivated by the upsurge of innovations, technological platforms and digital solutions that tackle the disruptions in healthcare service delivery spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic.

During this panel, the following themes were discussed:

• Challenges and perspectives of innovations and digital health for Global Health Security in Africa
• Health autonomy and sovereignty, for access to antigenic test (RDT) tests and vaccination
• Funding of innovations and digital health in the management of Global Health Security, challenges and perspectives
• Promotion of innovation and digital health in SSM: role of States, challenges and perspectives.

Dr Chibi presented an overview of the innovations that have been developed across Africa with an emphasis on pushing for the sovereignty of locally-based innovations through creating an enabling environment for promoting and supporting innovators. He also highlighted the various systemic gaps that are affecting the innovative processes affecting the strengthening of health systems across the African region contextualizing from the WHO Reginal strategy for Scaling health innovations.

Innovation Impact Series: #MentalHealth Innovation in African Region

29, September 2021 - 13:25 | COVID-19 Health Innovations

September, 2021

On September 29th, the WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and the Regional Director of the Regional Office for Africa (AFRO) convined a webinar that drew participation of distinguished leaders from the African region, WHO mental health experts, the WHO Innovation Hub, the external innovators listed below, and their funders to learn about existing evidence-based mental health innovations in the African region and potential paths to scale for these types of efforts moving forward.

• Friendship Bench, Zimbabwe: Community-based mental health innovation for people living with HIV
• THE SEEK-GSP Programme, Uganda: Group support psychotherapy (GSP) sessions to treat depression delivered by trained community healthcare workers
• The Erq Ma’ed - or reconciliation table, Ethiopia: Mixed talk radio, communications, and community -based counselling

The African region currently has an estimated 1.4 mental health workers per 100,000 people, a number significantly below the global average and a deficit of what is required to address mounting demands related to mental health. This is one of many signals of the need for new and innovative approaches to scale-up access to effective mental health support and services in the region. While we still have some way to go before meeting mental health demands in the African region, innovative approaches are increasingly showing their worth in contributing to improved access and outcomes and signaling their potential for scale-up via health system integration