4 ms·
This is really cool, and the effort is definitely admirable, but I'd have a few questions: 1. A suitcase can't conduct an examination and render a diagnosis; s
by obviouslygreen 13y ago
This is really cool, and the effort is definitely admirable, but I'd have a few questions:
1. A suitcase can't conduct an examination and render a diagnosis; someone has to be able to operate it effectively. Are those people -- doctors, nurses, or someone with similar training -- available in the places that could benefit the most from this?
2. From what's been posted around here, India has a very serious basic sanitation problem. If that's true, two things:
2a. How will a predominantly filthy (bacterially speaking) environment effect the accuracy and utility of this, particularly over long term use of a single unit?
2b. Can we expect this to actually do any good in a significant number of cases? I'd expect that a diagnosis like "yes, your malady is x, which is an infection from the water you drink" is going to do very little good for many people's situation.
I have no idea how the cost of this compares to salaries or publicly-available funds for the places this is intended for, but that seems to me like another potential issue.
- swatkat 13y agoFor 1: Rural places in India have Primary Health Centres (PHCs); they're basically clinics with basic health-care facilities[0]. I believe these PHCs would benefit from such portable blood analyzers, as setting up a full fledged diagnostic lab may not be economical. PHCs would have doctor, nurse and pharmacist; so operating these kits shouldn't be a problem. Also, from the linked article, it looks like Border Roads Organisation is already using these kits. For 2a and 2b: I am not sure how effective it will be in long run, in filthy environment :) [0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_Health_Centre,_India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_Health_Centre,_India