New Scientist Australian Edition – 24 August 2019

24 August 2019 | New Scientist | 47

You have a bigger vision for how it can be

used, though, right?

Yes. The device also collects data in real time,

and we can use this to look at the geographical

distribution and evolution of malaria cases.

This data is passed on to organisations

involved in malaria control programmes.

We’re also looking at letting pharmaceutical

companies use the data so they can provide

the right medications to the communities

that need it most.

Have you come across any unexpected

challenges during development?

When we did some test cases, a mother came

in to have a diagnosis for her child who had

a high fever. Her kid was malaria negative.

The mother wasn’t convinced, so she went

next door and had the blood drawn as well.

This made us understand that we also have

to change the way that people think about

new technologies.

You’re 27, but you have already created this

potentially game-changing technology.

What will you do next?

I want to grow the company in order to close

the gaps between communities and their

rightful access to healthcare. I would like to

build more technologies that offer better

diagnoses. This definitely won’t be the last

device we develop.  ❚

Helen Thomson is a consultant for New Scientist and

author of Unthinkable: An extraordinary journey

through the world’s strangest brains

understanding of how malaria affects the

body. We needed to understand the mechanics

of malaria, and we needed to understand a lot

of things in microbiology and parasitology.

Tell us more about the problems with the

current diagnostic tests.

Doctors use a blood test and it takes time

to get a diagnosis. People can be queuing

for hours. It takes a skilled doctor to do the

analysis and they can be sitting there all day

staring down a microscope. I wanted to figure

out how we can make that process easier,

how we can take the patients’ pain away and

how to do it quickly. It isn’t just the diagnosis:

while people are queuing, they aren’t going

to school, they aren’t going to work, they

aren’t earning money.

What was your solution?

We did lots of research and found that

when a person is infected with malaria, the

parasite that causes the disease changes

the physical and chemical composition of

their blood cells. It also creates a crystal-like

structure in the bloodstream. Our solution

uses the principles of light scattering and

magnetism to map out the differences

between malaria-infected and normal blood

cells. We use this information together with

a light beam that is shone onto the finger to

detect whether malaria is in the blood or not.

Did you have an “aha” moment when you

figured it all out?

Our device had to go through lots of iterations.

The first few prototypes failed completely.

There were lots of things that interfered with

the light beam, like the temperature of the

skin, which changes when you have a fever.

There was never really an “aha” moment,

more like constant research that gradually

moved towards the solution. Once we got

there, we started a company called Matibabu,

which means “treatment” in Swahili. We are

now starting a clinical trial and looking at

improving consistency. We’re testing it on

500 people and then, if the outcomes are good,

we will start a trial of 10,000 people, so that

we can get verification before we roll it out.

How expensive will your approach be

compared with standard blood tests?

We are still working out the costs, but our

plan was always for it to be cheaper than a

microscope. And in terms of value for the

community and the time it takes to get a

diagnosis, its worth is more than just the

cost of the test itself.

A prototype of the

diagnostic tool that

could help people get

treatment more easily

Brian Gitta is co-founder with Joshua

Businge Muleesi, Josiah Kavuma and

Simon Lubambo of Matibabu, a

Uganda-based company that aims

to develop new technology to improve

community health. He is a 2019

recipient of the Rolex Awards for

Enterprise, which recognise

entrepreneurs whose work

addresses major global challenges

“ While people wait for a

malaria diagnosis, they

aren’t going to school,

they aren’t going to work”

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