Four Innovations Out Of Senegal That Are Changing The Course Of The Pandemic
Good news is all too welcome in these difficult and trying times. Though the vaccines have made great strides in curbing the global pandemic, COVID-19 remains a persistent concern for many nations around the world. Now, the world is turning its attention to Senegal, which is swiftly emerging as a global leader in the ongoing fight against the devastating effects of the virus.
Through four major innovative methods, Senegal has been breaking new ground, particularly when it come to rapid and effective COVID-19 response.
- New Testing Kits
In March of this year, researchers in Senegal began validating trials on a new kind of COVID-19 self-diagnostic test that can be used by every-day folk at home. Not only are these new tests quick, efficient, and easy to use, produce and distribute, but they will also only cost around $1 to buy.
Senegal has had a lot of successful experience with containing disease outbreaks in the past, including some of the most serious and deadly, such as Ebola and HIV-AIDS. These new tests are an innovation based on another type of test that was originally meant to check for Dengue fever. If all goes well, they could be distributed across Africa as early as July, and perhaps soon after, the rest of world.
- Robot Caregivers
Perhaps one of the most surprising innovations has been developed by a brilliant group of scientists and engineers at the Ecole Supérieure Polytechnique de Dakar. They have managed to invent a robot caregiver, named “Docteur Car”. It is specially designed to treat patients infected with Coronavirus, or any infectious disease, without running the risk of spreading it.
The robot can deliver medication and food and can pilot itself around a hospital or clinic unaided. It can even communicate with patients and is programmed to speak in several different languages.
- Senegal’s Rapid Alert & Response App
An app developed in Senegal for mobile devices, called “Alerte Santé Sénégal”, which translates to “Senegal Health Alert”, was created by Jesus Ekie. It was designed to help curb the spread of misinformation following the initial onset of the pandemic. It contains only the latest, most reliable, fact-checked information and data regarding COVID-19. This info is then made available to the public in an easy to understand and accessible way.
- A New Digital Communications Platform
A new digital communications platform, developed and used in Senegal, called “Sunucity”, which translates to “our city” in the Wolof language, has been gaining a lot of excitement and attention recently. It allows local authorities and citizens to communicate in a new, effective, and easy manner. It makes incident reporting, as well as important public warnings and notices, far more rapid, easy, and accessible, just like the best betting sites.
Advancing Innovations
A common aspect in all the innovations here, even the robot, is that they are effective, though also relatively simple, cheap, and easy to produce and distribute. They have also already proven to be of huge help in Senegal for battling COVID-19, and so the hope is that they could potentially do the same for the rest of the world.