Thursday, 28th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

Nigeria-made rapid urine test for malaria wins Health Innovation Awards

By Chukwuma Muanya
29 October 2015   |   2:58 am
A Nigeria-made malaria test that can diagnose the disease within 25 minutes using just drops of patients’ urine sample has won the inaugural 2015 Health Innovation Challenge Awards.
PHN

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Private Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria (PHN), Dr. Muntaqa Umar-Sadiq (left); Co-chair, PHN and Chairman, Zenith Bank, Mr. Jim Ovia; Nutritionist/MCH Consultant, Dr. Rahma Hassan Funsho and Co-Founder/CEO, MDaaS, Mr. Oluwasoga Temitope Oni, at the Health Innovation and Impact Investment Summit at the Civic Centre, Lagos.

A Nigeria-made malaria test that can diagnose the disease within 25 minutes using just drops of patients’ urine sample has won the inaugural 2015 Health Innovation Challenge Awards.

The awards was instituted by the Private Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria (PHN) through the Nigeria Health Innovation Marketplace (NHIM).
Urine Malaria Test (UMT), which is endorsed by the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) and approved by the National Agency for Food Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and developed by Fyodor Biotechnologies was the first among the five winning innovations from the 2015 Health Innovation Challenge.

The overall performance of the UMT is equivalent to that of the Binax NOW blood test, the only malaria rapid test approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The award given to Fyodor UMT comes with a grant of $100,000 and enrollment in the accelerated programme of the NHIM.
The presentation was made yesterday in Lagos, at the 2015 Nigeria Health Innovation and Impact Investment Summit.
The Nigeria Health and Innovation Impact Investment Summit event was tagged “2015 Disrupting Healthcare, Saving Lives.” The activation of the PHN was formally endorsed by former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, Mr. Bill Gates, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, Dr. Muhammad Ali Pate, Mr. Jim Ovia, Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, Mrs. Sola David Borha and other corporate leaders in Nigeria to mobilise the broader business and corporate community as well as the private health sector towards a multi-sectoral coalition to improving health outcomes.

It has been shown that the private sector has the potential to expand the access to health services, improve quality of care and complement the public sector’s efforts in addressing health system challenges in the country.

Co-Chair of PHN and Chairman of Zenith Bank, Jim Ovia, said: “The innovators are not making money but they are contributing to saving lives and improving society. We will give them all the support and definitely they will be making money in the future.”

Chief Executive Officer of PHN, Dr. Muntaqa Umar-Sadiq said: “It is important to use innovative platforms to improve health. Despite millions of dollars invested in healthcare we are not seeing the result. So we need bold and innovative approach to improve our health indices.”

Umar-Sadiq said various players in the country including PHN, Health Strategy and Delivery Foundation (HSDF), Flint Atlantic Capital, International Finance Corporation (IFC) and others are already converging a market for healthcare social enterprise and impact investment capital.

Meanwhile, the first runner up award went to Medical Devices as a Service (MDaaS) with a cash grant of $50,000 in addition to participate in the accelerated NHIM programme.

MDaaS is a company that makes medical devices available, accessible and affordable to underserved health facilities across Nigeria. MDaaS provides hospitals with a range of device acquisition options and offer world-class service support with each device.

The second runner up award went to e-Heal (Electronic Health Education in Any Language) with a grant of $30,000 and participation in the accelerated NHIM programme.

2 Comments

  • Author’s gravatar

    this is a good news. let there be more of this

  • Author’s gravatar

    Fyodor Biotechnologies and the likes should be encourage and praised for this new initiative. I believe in the near future they can do more than this.UMT does n’t need any blood sample and it is time saving, This is how we can make our great country Nigeria competitive with its peers in the emerging economies. Technology and innovation is what makes the difference, and if Nigeria can sustain startup like Fyodor with their chain values, in the long run we would be able to relieve the public health sector of its burden.Championing a startup entails alot of business risks which an entrepreneur have to consider and most of the time over looked with some precautions.. FDA should encourage Fyodor by licensing the product for marketing.