{"id":5199,"date":"2011-09-14T15:08:31","date_gmt":"2011-09-14T15:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=5199"},"modified":"2011-09-14T15:08:31","modified_gmt":"2011-09-14T15:08:31","slug":"solar-powered-hearing-aids-invented","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2011\/09\/14\/solar-powered-hearing-aids-invented\/","title":{"rendered":"Solar-powered hearing aids invented"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The SSMJ have come across this fantastic article that looks at how new technology could help developing countries. It also highlights the problems of using Western tech in Africa:<\/p>\n

Some experts are inventing new products for the poor, like a solar-powered hearing aid or a motorcycle ambulance, two inventions showcased at an engineering conference in London.<\/p>\n

The inventions show a bit of creativity never hurts, especially when it comes to solving health problems in developing countries.<\/p>\n

In a new report published online Monday in the journal Lancet, the United Nations highlights innovations like using text messages in South Africa to remind women with HIV to get their babies tested and tucking medicines into Coca-Cola crates to reach remote villages.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of thousands of replacement joints, surgical tools and other medical devices have been sent to poor countries over the years. But according to the World Health Organization, about 75 per cent of the donated goods sit unused, either because they\u2019re broken or no one knows how to use them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, there\u2019s been a lot of good will and bad judgment in the West,\u201d said Chris Lavy, an orthopedic surgeon at the University of Oxford who previously worked in Africa.<\/p>\n

Lavy said many African hospitals get dozens of different types of hip or knee replacements that are often unusable.\u201dIt\u2019s like you need a spare tire for your Volkswagen but they send you a Mercedes radiator instead,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said inventions like the solar-powered hearing aid could make a big difference in Africa. Experts estimate two-thirds of the 250 million people worldwide who have a hearing disability live in poor countries.<\/p>\n

The solar-powered device was designed by Andrew Carr, a mechanical engineer in Cambridge, who noticed most hearing aids donated to Africa don\u2019t help because they treat a different type of hearing loss more prevalent in the West. The hearing aid Carr developed must be held close to the ear to work, but doesn\u2019t have to be worn inside.<\/p>\n

Carr\u2019s device has an internal solar-powered battery and can be looped into a necklace or attached to a hat so it\u2019s next to the person\u2019s ear.<\/p>\n

Unorthodox health solutions<\/p>\n

\u201cIt blends in with local tribal cultures better than the light pink hearing aids for Caucasians that get donated,\u201d Carr said. Carr is in talks with some charities about testing the hearing aid in Africa and hopes to secure more funding to mass produce the device.<\/p>\n

The U.N. report calls for more unorthodox health solutions, and details how health officials are now using Coca-Cola\u2019s supply chain to deliver anti-diarrhea treatments in Zambia. The medicine is sent in a special pod that sits in the unused space inside Coca-Cola crates.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo piggyback onto [Coca-Cola’s] distribution system is a great opportunity for medicines,\u201d said Tore Godal, a health adviser to the prime minister of Norway, who led the U.N. report. He said officials are also interested in using the soft drink crates to deliver ivermectin, a pill given to many Africans once a year to prevent river blindness.<\/p>\n

Other experts agreed new innovations can help and even create a sustainable market for health products, as long as researchers do their homework first.<\/p>\n

That was the idea behind the eRanger, a motorcycle ambulance with a sidecar stretcher capable of driving through the African bush.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe donated ambulances [from the West] won\u2019t do 100 yards in Africa,\u201d said Mike Norman, a British engineer who designed the motorcycle ambulance.<\/p>\n

So far, Guinea, Malawi, Tanzania and South Africa have bought the ambulances, which sell for about $6,200 US.<\/p>\n

Last year, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and others donated $250,000 US to UNICEF in Southern Sudan specifically to buy the vehicles.<\/p>\n

Norman says health officials have focused on using them to get pregnant women to health clinics to deliver their babies.<\/p>\n

Since the motorcycle ambulances were introduced in one district of Malawi several years ago, death rates among mothers have dropped 60 per cent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat really matters is if it\u2019s acceptable to people and if they will pay for it and use it,\u201d said Ted Bianco of the Wellcome Trust, who was not linked to any of the inventions or the U.N. report. \u201cBecause you could have a really fantastic invention, but if it\u2019s sitting on a shelf somewhere, it won\u2019t do any good.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information about health matters in South Sudan don\u2019t forget to visit the South Sudan Medical Journal http:\/\/www.southsudanmedicaljournal.com\/<\/p>\n

Source: http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/offbeat\/story\/2011\/09\/12\/medical-inventions.html Matt Dunham\/Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The SSMJ have come across this fantastic article that looks at how new technology could help developing countries. It also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[365,333,1175,1176],"class_list":["post-5199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-well-being","tag-aid","tag-health","tag-hearing","tag-inventions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}