Azanza Health was selected among 30 African startups to receive grants from the Investing in Innovation (i3) Program. The Harare-based startup was picked by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) backed program because it is aiming to increase access to echocardiography and other medical diagnostic procedures.
“We envision a world where all patients have timely, cost-effective access to healthcare. Our mission is to use technology to facilitate collaboration between healthcare providers in order to expedite time to treatment, decrease costs and drive better outcomes. Thats’s how we have managed to make echocardiography and ecg accessible to thousands of Zimbabweans.”
Azanza Health
Echocardiography is a medical term which simply means recording the heart’s rhythm using electrodes or getting a visual picture with ultrasound imaging. These methods of diagnosing heart conditions are the most used the world over. However, access locally is available mostly in Zimbabwe’s metropolitan areas.
Rural communities would need to trek to central hospitals to get a scan. But Azanza is changing this by employing mobile devices and training health professionals in remote areas to use them. The information is then uploaded to the cloud and processed by specialist healthcare professionals.
Azanza, according to its website, also offers obstetric ultrasound for pregnant women and other ultrasound imaging at their ultrasound centre in Harare or at the patient’s location.
“Digitally-enabled, locally-led innovations have huge potential to help address the challenges of access to medicines for historically unserved patients in Africa. We are thrilled to see strong women leaders at the helm of many of these startups, as we know innovation ecosystems are strengthened by diversity,”
Ann Allen – senior programme officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. (via Disrupt Africa)
Azanza was Zimbabwe’s representative in the Investing in Innovation (i3) Program. The startups selected covered 14 countries with 50% being female-led.
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