Coming to Nigeria: Device That Can Detect Malaria in 5 Sec

I don’t need to tell you that malaria is one of
the most deadliest disease in the world,
despite the fact that it is curable and
preventable, World Health Organization
(WHO) in 2015 estimated that 438,000 people
died from malaria mainly in sub-Saharan
Africa.



But John Lewandowski, a 26-year-old PhD
student in mechanical engineering at MIT
made a mechanical device called RAM (Rapid
Assessment of Malaria) that can diagnose
malaria from a drop of blood in five seconds.

With a single drop of blood, Lewandowski’s
RAM device can accurately detect the
presence of malaria using Magneto-Optical
Detection as early as a week before
symptoms even present themselves. Like a
pregnancy test, the RAM analyzes the sample
and returns either a positive or negative
response.

Beyond the outer box and LCD display, the
RAM consists mainly of a circuit board, a
laser, some magnets and an SD card reader.


A recent filed test in India yielded results that
were accurate 93% to 97% of the time, and
the company will launch a new field trial this
summer in Nigeria that hopes will test as
many as 5,000 patients.



This is a good development, coming to
Nigeria.