MOMALA

MOMALA is a social enterprise with the goal of improving the quality of the malaria diagnostics in the rural areas of Africa. Malaria is still a huge problem in many parts of Africa. In 2016 there were 212 million cases of Malaria and 430.000 deaths. One of the core issues is the availability and quality of diagnostics. MOMALA offers a solution: Automated diagnoses of Malaria. The MOMALA-app is a smartphone application that is able to detect Malaria parasites in a microscopic image of a blood smear. By attaching the phone’s camera to the microscope’s ocular, the app can automatically make pictures of a thick blood smear and analyze it. The algorithm features a convolutional neural network that has been trained to classify white blood cells, and the three most prevalent plasmodium parasites in Kenya: P. falciparum, P. ovale and P. malariae. By moving the slide around, the app will analyze multiple fields until it has enough data to give a reliable quantitative diagnosis following WHO guidelines. The MOMALA-app is an In Vitro Device meant for professional use by laboratories and clinics, where it can help with speeding up the diagnostic process and improve the overall quality of healthcare system.