Like most typical Nigerians, when I fall ill and it isn’t a cold or cough, I automatically assume it’s malaria.
After taking malaria drugs and my symptoms still persist, I don’t consult a doctor. I take typhoid drugs, because if it’s not malaria, it must be typhoid.
Then when it doesn’t work either, I’ll then consult my doctor.
But self-diagnosis can be dangerous.
What if we told you that you can safely check whether or not you have malaria?
Yes, it’s true. A test kit with which you can determine whether or not you have the malaria parasite now exists.
The kit called ‘The Urine Malaria Test’ is created by Fyodor, a US based biotechnology firm founded by one of our own, Eddy Agbo.
The UMT kit won Fyodor the inaugural 2015 Health Innovation Challenge Awards in Nigeria this month. The award is backed by the Private Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria (PHN) and comes with a grant of $100,000, with support for PHN from backers including: Bill Gates, Aliko Dangote and Goodluck Jonathan.
With this urine test kit, you’re provided with point-of-need diagnosis of the Plasmodium parasite using dipstick technology.
This kit uses the same technology as that of manual pregnancy tests. And you get your results under 20 minutes.
No need to pay for lab tests anymore!
All ye who are scared of needles and syringes, rejoice! AND, you save your money too.
Featured image via NCPR.
