[b]I was particularly moved when I read the story of Brian Gita and his friends (known as Code Eight) at Makerere University in Uganda who worked together to build the app for testing for Malaria one of the greatest killers in Africa. Just a few months before that, Brian was bedridden suffering from Malaria. It was while he was on his sick bed that he conceived the idea to build the app with the help of three other friends Josiah Kavuma, Simon Lubambo, Joshua Businge.

As a mentor, I often tell my mentees that the existence of problems / challenges should not mean the end of the road but instead should be seen as opportunities to propel us towards overcoming the challenges. No other story captures this better than this story. Brian could have resigned himself to fate or prayed and wished that somebody else somewhere will do something about Malaria. But he took up the challenge and today the world has Matibabu - the painless and bloodless test for Malaria.

In his 21 years Brian Gitta has had malaria too many times to count. And over the years, because of the numerous times he has had to have his blood drawn to test for the disease, he has developed a fear of needles. It is little wonder then that he and three of his fellow computer science students worked hard to develop a mobile phone app that detects malaria – without the use of needles.

“I was two or three years old when I first contracted it,” says Gitta, who is studying computer science at Makerere University in Kampala.

“It’s very unusual to meet people in Uganda who haven’t had malaria. If you go to a clinic, you might find that 90 percent of patients have it.”

Annually an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 Ugandans die from the tropical disease, which is transmitted to humans by mosquitoes carrying the malaria parasite. That makes it the country’s biggest killer, according to the NGO Malaria Consortium Uganda. Experts say nearly half (about 42 percent) of Uganda’s 34.5 million people are host to the malaria parasite, although they do not display any signs of being ill.

Read full story at https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8989869891426103499#allposts/postNum=0

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Even if it amounts to nothing, this is something that should be highly praised. An app!

Stellar