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Home > Health Tech

Category: Health Tech
March 15, 2022

Zuri Health Wins Sankalp Africa Awards 2022

The Sankalp Africa Awards 2022 were held at the recent Sankalp Africa Summit held from 1st to 4th March 2022, and health-tech startup Zuri Health were announced as the winners. The first runners up were Ecodudu and the second runners up were Mobility for Africa. Zuri Health is a healthcare startup that was launched in January 2021in Nairobi, Kenya. Providing affordable and accessible healthcare solutions is at the heart of the company. So far, the healthcare company has managed to onboard over 250 doctors, has over 350000 SMS subscribers and has presence in 7 countries: Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, Uganda, South Africa and Zambia.
"Founded in February 2020, our journey started with a vision. A vision for quality, affordable and on-demand healthcare for all with a simple swipe. We are creating an all-inclusive service that caters for all individuals with a mobile device, regardless of their location, health history and social status," Daisy Isiaho, Co-Founder of Zuri Health states. 
Considering that smartphone adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa is currently at 40% of total mobile phone owners, Zuri Health added extra functionality that would include the rest of the 60% that do not own smartphones or have internet access, ensuring that no one is left out. According to the Sankalp Africa Forum website, the 2022 Edition of Sankalp Africa Awards was looking for 'social entrepreneurs who are mainstreaming impact, are making a positive impact on society, gaining hands-on experience and networking with a global community.' Ikechukwu Anoke, CEO and Founder of Zuri Health, said,
"On behalf of Zuri Health, I would like to thank everyone involved in making us the Sankalp Africa Summit 2022 Award winners.  

Our goal is to democratize healthcare in Africa, to make basic primary healthcare accessible and affordable for all, through the means that are easiest for you, and awards like this remind us that we are on the right path and that our work means something to you too. 

The Sankalp Africa Awards celebrate outstanding social entrepreneurs that show innovation and to be placed on the same stage as other winners is any founder’s dream.

We value your support, we treasure your understanding, and we appreciate your patience. But most of all, we are so grateful to you for making us winners. We owe this one to you, and Glory be to God."
December 8, 2021

Zuri Health goes live in Senegal in partnership with Expresso Senegal

We are pleased to announce a new partnership with Expresso Senegal as Zuri Health Launches in Senegal! Expresso Senegal, a subsidiary of the Expresso Telecom group is a telecommunication operator in Senegal that offers services adapted to the internet, calls, and SMS with the 4G technology and business and roaming solutions. Our partnership is aimed at revolutionizing e-health in Senegal and Africa at large. We see the application of mobile technologies in the healthcare industry as a way to provide high-quality and easily accessible medical care at a lower cost. “It is with great satisfaction that Expresso Senegal and Zuri Health are launching together with the health app under the name Zuri Health. This is a major innovation in the Senegalese healthcare ecosystem, allowing our company to once again contribute to the solution of the challenges the population faces in accessing a first-resort physician for guidance and referrals.” Says Radi Almamoun, Acting CEO at Expresso Senegal. This partnership will give us the ability to provide value across the entire chain by merging technology and healthcare. An Expresso subscriber in Senegal simply sends a keyword to 28008 to subscribe to the service and begins to chat and consult with a doctor via SMS. The patients will get real-time and reliable responses from certified doctors, affordable healthcare and secure and protected private health information. The majority of users in Senegal who may not have access to internet-enabled devices or smartphones will now have the opportunity to receive first-level medical consultations from qualified medical professionals through the SMS platform. "We are very excited to be working with Expresso Senegal as our Telco partner in Senegal. At Zuri Health, we have taken into cognizance Africa's unique challenges and offered medical consultation via SMS service to take care of the over 65% of the population without access to smartphones or the internet. Patients are now able to consult with a doctor for as low as 30 CFA franc. Our commitment to offering quality, affordable and accessible healthcare is the key reason we have partnered with Expresso Senegal.”- noted Ikechukwu Arthur Anoke, Founder and C.E.O at Zuri Health.
October 5, 2021

The Future of Mental Health: VR Therapy

Throughout the past decade, we as humans have enacted many changes to improve our living conditions, from a rise in climate change discussions to discussions on race and gender equality. One of the biggest shifts this past decade was the acceptance and destigmatization of mental health issues. Over the past few years, we have slowly and surely pushed forward the conversation of mental health awareness from discussions of work-life balance to detection and treatment of mental health-related medical issues. Existing treatments have been re-evaluated and new therapies developed tapping into the tech industry, to aid an ever-growing populace of people actively putting their mental health first.  One such breakthrough is VR Therapy. In this article, we will break down this emerging technology looking at what it means for the world in general and its feasibility on the African continent.

What is VR Therapy and How does it work? 

Virtual reality therapy (VRT), also called virtual reality exposure therapy, allows the patient receiving the treatment to enter a virtual (simulated) world that is carefully constructed to increase their exposure to negative stimuli, so as to build resilience and emotional strength when placed in the real world.  VRT makes use of a virtual world created by VR technology to put a patient in situations you can learn from. Previous iterations were simply programs loaded onto a computer, that a patient would work through, and based on the conditions sought to be treated. However, with the breakthrough of the VR headset, current therapies make extensive use of the complete immersion that is offered for a much-improved experience and treatment. Already the technology has been put to use in treatments for several conditions including:
  • Fear of flying, public speaking, and spiders
  • School phobia in children
  • PTSD
  • Depression
  • Anxiety
  • Eating disorders
 

Reception and Acceptance

Early results of VRT have largely been positive. Recent studies have found that the VRT was as good as a combination of drug therapy and VR therapy, where some situations showed drug therapy alone led to a worse outcome for patients.  Already the technology has found success in various applications around the world. It has long since been used by the US government to treat PTSD in soldiers from as early as the 1990s. The Canadian government also purchased the software from America in hopes of implementing it among their own soldiers. The main drawback to this form of therapy however is the cost of the equipment and programs needed. Because of this, virtual reality therapy isn't readily available to the masses. This type of therapy can also cause what is known as VR sickness. People who have this condition due to prolonged exposure to a VR environment may experience flashbacks, motion sickness, vertigo, seizures, and antisocial or nervous behavior. These symptoms are most likely to occur after 30 minutes or more of VR therapy. 

VRT in Africa

While still an emerging form of treatment, several institutes in Africa have seen the advantages such technology can bring. The biggest problem for Africa remains acceptance and cost. Africa as a continent still struggles with the acceptance of mental health as a medical issue and it is not uncommon for mental health struggles to go undiagnosed due to a severe lack of specialists or to be misdiagnosed when they are known. Traditional ideas also play a part as the more overt mental health illnesses such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are often attributed to curses or possessions in the more traditional societies. The cost of the therapy also plays a role in the lack of research and use of VRT.  As a developing continent, most African countries spend their budgets on agriculture, development, and projects for economic growth.  More often than not medical research institutes have to rely on limited budget allocations or foreign intervention. Even when the funds are available, priority is given to the eradication of prevalent diseases such as malaria or childhood malnutrition. However, this does not mean that research into VRT is quiet. Gerard Finnemore a clinical psychologist from South Africa uses Virtual Reality for relaxation and mindfulness training and will soon be incorporating it into treating other conditions.  In Egypt researcher Ahmad Al-kabbany is pioneering virtual reality (VR) therapy in the city of Alexandria despite the region’s economic challenges. “We’re not aiming at making it accessible for everyone not because we don’t want to but we need to deal with the financial conditions as they are,” says Al-Kabbany In Nigeria, the startup company VMedKit has developed content to facilitate VRT which could also be used for personal wellness and meditation. The company, officially launched in 2018 and aims to make mental health care accessible to Nigerians and Africans in general. However, VMedKit is not the first company in Africa to undertake such an endeavor. The startup VRHealth launched in 2017 in South Africa. As of the writing of this article, the startup seems to have gone quiet with little about its operations being known. The future of VRT as a viable form of therapy remains hopeful as the prices of VR equipment become more affordable and research into the field continues to grow.
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