Malaria
Malaria continues to kill about 430 000 people every year due to insufficient diagnostic procedures and limited access to trustworthy healtcare. Current diagosis are either unreliable, or they require medical expertise. Which is not always available.
AiDx Medical has developed a new technology to make reliable diagnosis cheaper, faster, and accessible for everyone.
Our aim is to bring this technology to remote areas, to reduce both morbidity and mortality among the most vulnerable people.
About us
AiDx Medical B.V. is officially founded in March 2019, but the team has been working together for several years. Technical expertise is combined with extended context exploration and user research to make sure we develop a solution that fits the needs of the final user. And to deliver a product, which is robust enough to withstand extreme environmental circumstances. We have had the privalege to work closely together with malaria experts in Nigeria and medical experts from the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) in The Netherlands.
Our team
Temitope Agbana
CEO - Technical expert
Areas of expertise
- Optical systems
- Machine learning
- Nigerian market
Gleb Vdovin
CTO - Technical expert
Areas of expertise
- Optical systems
- Machine learning
- Entrepreneurship
Mirte Vendel
COO - Industrial Design Engineer
- User & context analysis
- Designing for emerging markets
- Malaria & Schistosomiasis
Jan-Carel Diehl
Industrial Design Engineer
Areas of expertise
- Design for emerging markets
- Associate professor TU Delft
Seva Patlan
Technical expert
- Systems & control
- Optical system development
Oleg Soloviev
Technical expert
- Optical systems & control
Dr. Michel Verhaegen
Technical expert
Delft Center for Systems &Control
Delft University of Technology
Advisory board
Investors
European Institute of Innovation & Technology
Max Hoeboer
Product developer
- Product & prototype development
- Designing for emerging markets
Smart quantification
In both, the private and academic sector, malaria research institutions are dedicated to develop new malaria medication and malaria vaccines. As part of their research, lab technicians have to spend several days a week behind the microscope, to manually quantify parasitemia in blood samples. It is a time consuming, tiresome task and their time could be used for other valuable work.
Our technology is able to automate this process. In only one minute, our device can quantify parasitemia in over 10 000 red blood cells. Which is about 15 times faster than highly experienced lab technicians.
1. Research
Increase capacity
Microscopy is the WHO Gold Standard for malaria diagnoses. A time consuming method (20-45 minutes per sample) that requires trained lab technicians and available equipment. As a result, microscopy is usually only available in larger health facilities, hospitals and private clinics. And the number of patients is too high for the available microscopists.
Our technology is able to replace the manual microscopy. We are developing an affordable optical device to automatically detect malaria infections in blood samples in only 5 mintues. To significantly increase the diagnostic capcity and quality of African hospitals.
2. Hospitals
3. Remote areas
Affordable & reliable
In rural areas, access to sufficient health is limited. Medical experts are rare and hospitals are difficult to reach. People depend on the healthcare providence of local health facilities or local health volunteers. In these areas, malaria is usually detected with a cheap Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT). A simple method but unfortunately very unreliable. Causing overtreatment due to false positives results (leading to drug resistance) and to undetected cases due to false negative results (leading to severe cases or even death). As a result, malaria continues to kill almost 500 000 people every year.
We have developed an easy and affordable optical instrument. Able to automatically detect malaria infections in blood samples, without the need of a medical exert. We have reach our proof of concept, tested it in Nigeria and are further optimising the technology in order to execute large scale trials in the field.
Our products
AiDx Medical develops both hardware and software to detect tropical diseases like malaria, to make reliable and sensitive malaria detection accessible, even in the most remote areas. However, the same technology in a slightly different application can be used for a number of markets. We develop products for the following three markets, fighting malaria on three different levels.
1. Malaria Research Centres
2. Hospitals and private clinics in endemic countries
3. Local health facilities in remote areas
2
3
1
Hospitals
Research
Rural areas
In the news
BNR Nieuwsradio
12 - 07 - 2019
Interview Mirte Vendel about the focus and goals of AiDx Medical on the Dutch radio channel: BNR zakendoen.
TEDx Delft 2019
06 - 06 - 2019
Temitope Agbana shares his motivation to fight for societal impact at TEDx Delft.
EIT Health Headstart Fund
04 - 07 - 2019
In the first Headstart call of 2019, EIT Health Belgium-Netherlands awarded nine start-ups with support that includes €50 000 in funding. We are happy to annaunce that AiDx Medical is one of the selected startups! Click here for more information.
EIT Health Validation Lab
Sept - Nov 2018
During the Validation Lab we successfully validated the potential of our startup with international stakeholders in both Europe and Africa. This work was rewarded by the jury of the final pitch day. By winning the Validation Lab, we will be pitching our work in December in Lodz, Poland, at the EIT Health Summit 2018!
Offically founded in March 2019!
