A mobile application launched by a health technology company

Expo Live .. «Omome» reduces the deaths of pregnant women and children

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A health tech startup is using mobile technology to solve pressing health challenges for both children and mothers.

And it designed an application on the phone that allows access to health information and communicate with doctors for consultations.

Mobicure's app, Omomi and linked to a website, helps;

Mothers, pregnant women and parents should monitor the health of their children under five while they are at home, a step that contributes to saving the lives of the children of many families living in remote areas, or parents who cannot afford the costs of visiting specialized medical centers.

Since its launch in Benin City, southern Nigeria, in 2015, the application has spread among more than 40,000 people.

The Expo Live grant will help promote this application on a larger scale.

Thousands of women and children die every day from preventable causes such as complicated pregnancy, childbirth and early childhood diseases.

According to the company, many of these deaths could be avoided if the mothers were provided with relevant information, no matter where they were.

Available data from the World Bank in Nigeria show that nearly a thousand pregnant women out of every 100,000 live births face death, while the maternal mortality ratio in many countries does not exceed two cases out of 100,000 births.

The startup was co-founded by Dr. Charles Achimene, Dr. Emmanuel Owobo and Raman Anurag.

The company can provide solutions to the high rate of maternal and child mortality, and poor access to health services, using SMS text messages, applications and interactive audio recordings.

When the baby is born, the new mother receives a lot of advice from family members, friends and others close to her.

Some of the advice contrasts starkly with information provided by healthcare workers, while the start-up focuses specifically on maternal and child health, which remains a major challenge in Africa.

For pregnant women, the app provides prenatal, postpartum and baby care.

It also helps mothers to track their children's condition and manage diarrhea at home using an interactive 'do-it-yourself' platform.

The platform gives mothers access to experienced doctors in emergency situations, because getting healthcare advice at home saves time and money, and may be a way to avoid health risks.

The application also contains a reminder of vaccination times, monitoring of the growth of the child, and a GPS locator for the nearest hospital in case of emergency.

It also contains vital health tips about breastfeeding, and important tips for caring for both mother and baby, especially during critical times.

Mothers can ask anonymous health questions and get answers from doctors in less than 10 minutes.

The application provides access to information about maternal and child health, and this is a major problem in the most populous African countries, which leads to delays in providing treatment, due to the difficulty of access or the high cost.

For example, some countries have a ratio of one doctor to 6000 patients, while the WHO recommendations are one doctor to 600 patients.

According to the World Health Organization, in 2019, an estimated 5.2 million children under the age of five died from preventable causes.

Of these deaths, children between the ages of one and 11 months accounted for 1.5 million, while the number of deaths of children between the ages of one and four years was 1.3 million.

Newborns (less than 28 days old) accounted for the remainder of the 2.4 million deaths.

The main causes of death for children under five years of age are complications of preterm birth, birth asphyxia/trauma, pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria.

They are preventable or treatable by providing simple and affordable interventions, including immunization, adequate nutrition, safe water and food, and high-quality care by a trained health provider, when needed.

It is noteworthy that five countries that accounted for half of all child deaths (under the age of five) in 2019 are: Nigeria, India, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia.

• «The application helps parents to monitor the health of their children while they are at home».

the problem

Infant mortality due to the difficulty of obtaining appropriate medical advice.

The solution

A mobile application that easily provides medical advice to parents.

sector

- Healthcare.

the site

- Nigeria.