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Increased investment in health care generation operating in Africa
* A pandemic accelerates the use of health-related technologies.
Ghana in talks with Zipline for drone delivery
Poor Internet, scarcity threatens wider use of technology
By Alexis Akwagyiram
LAGOS, 7 September (Reuters) – When Loveth Metiboba’s baby had diarrhea, he feared that taking her to a clinic near her home in nigerian capital Abuja could spread them from the coronavirus.
“The concept of going to the clinic is very scary,” said Metiboba, a charity researcher.
Instead, the clinic, run by eHealth Africa’s nigerian health care generation, sent you an Internet browser link to maintain a verbal video exchange with a doctor who diagnosed your child with a mild illness and prescribed medications to prevent dehydration.
Around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated adjustments in the way medicine is practiced, as health care starts more and more with an online consultation than with a face-to-face meeting.
But opportunities in Africa, where access to health care is limited, are transformative and offer opportunities for expansion to corporations that provide online consultations and online drug sales.
Mukul Majmudar, executive leader of CureCompanion, who developed the online platform used through Metiboba, said the Texas-based company had noticed that its business in Africa had increased 12-monthly this year since 2019.
This compares to a 10-time accumulation in online medicine in the seven countries: Armenia, Honduras, India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States, as well as Nigeria, where it operates.
Helium Health, a Nigerian company that specializes in digitizing medical records, postponed the launch of its consulting platform, scheduled for the end of this year, in February to address the pandemic call.
In May, it raised $ 10 million from investors, adding the Chinese generation Tencent.
Adegoke Olubusi, CEO of Helium Health, dozens of hospitals and clinics had enrolled in the service.
They come with a personal clinic in the Victoria Island shopping district of Lagos.
It runs through Dr. Ngozi Onyia, who claimed that she had subscribed to a monthly subscription of 150,000 nars ($394.22) with Helium Health and that most patients at the clinic had opted for online consultations, called telemedicine, in the weeks following the first cases in Nigeria.of the new coronavirus.
Online consultations charge 10,000 naRs each, part of the cost of a face-to-face exam.
“It allowed us to continue, we clung to our patients and even to new ones,” Onyia said.
PRIVATE FINANCING, GOVERNMENT USE
Even before the pandemic, public fitness experts and investors saw the prospect of telemedicine to help Africa fulfill the wishes of expanding populations.
Funds for progression agencies and venture capitalists have been poured into the generation that provides fitness care in Africa.
Data from San Francisco-based investment firm Partech showed that venture capital investment in African health care generation corporations increased to $189 million in 2019, up from $20 million in 2017 and 2018.Even in pandemic turmoil, about $97 million raised in the first part of 2020 Partech said.
Of last year’s total, $69 million spread over 12 transactions and $120 million went to Zipline, a California drone company introduced in Rwanda in 2016.
He estimates that his drones, with medical equipment, can succeed in 95% of East Africa’s mountainous country from two distribution centers.
In 2019, he expanded to Ghana, where the government locked him up in May to deliver control samples of coronavirus, vaccines and protective clothing, such as gloves.
“This has become very practical in this pandemic when we had to temporarily send samples to the control centers,” said Nsiah-Asare, fitness advisor to Ghana’s president.
He is in talks with Zipline to expand its operations in Ghana by creating 3 new distribution centers in addition to the 4 Ziplines already operating there, Reuters Nsiah-Asare and the company’s country director, Daniel Marfo, told Reuters Nsiah-Asare.
Nigeria’s government, Africa’s most populous country, has also noticed the need for high-tech aid.
Authorities in the capital, Abuja, have hired eHealth Africa’s charitable arm to implement a formula that alerts negative patients to the new COVID-19 guilty coronavirus with an automatic text message.
Those who test positive for coronavirus want medical and tactile research, but for negative controls, a message is enough.
Chikwe Ihekweazu, who runs the Nigerian Center for Disease Control (NCDC), said the automation of the procedure would allow the government to administer more tests after foreign flights resume from September 5.
“Almost everything we’re doing right now, from logistics to managing the outbreak itself, is migrating to other generation platforms,” Ihekweazu said.
ECONOMIC CRISIS
Despite a generation’s prospect of helping, it is most likely limited, as the COVID-19 pandemic adds to Africa’s economic problems.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts a contraction of 3.2% of sub-Saharan Africa’s gross domestic product by 2020.
In addition, the pandemic has endangered some 20 million jobs across the continent, the African Union said, which has reduced people’s ability to spend on physical care.
Africa already spends less on care than the rest of the world.
It accounts for 16% of the world’s population and bears 23% of the global disease burden, yet accounted for only 1% of global fitness spending in 2015, according to the latest knowledge from the Washington-based Brookings Institution.think tank.
According to the terms capita, the rest of the world spends 10 times more, he says.
Widespread adoption of fitness technologies can also be hampered by poor Internet connectivity and asymmetric electricity.
Metiboba switches between two network providers to succeed over connectivity issues.
This is too expensive for many, however, for Metiboba, he has continued at the hotel for remote inquiries since fearing his son’s physical condition and plans to continue doing so.
“It works for me,” she says. (Report via Alexis Akwagyiram in Lagos; Additional report via Abraham Achirga in Abuja; Edited through Elyse Tanouye and Barbara Lewis)