Project Overview
The app allows health workers in the field, particularly in remote areas, to accurately count breaths so they can distinguish between pneumonia and other causes of fever that less often increase breathing rates, such as malaria and colds.
The ingenious but easy-to-use app asks for the child’s age and then tells the health worker to press any numerical button on the phone every time the child breathes. The app then gives an estimate of the breathing rate after 10 breaths and again after 20 breaths, before giving a final one-minute count.
Once a faster breathing rate is detected, the workers can diagnose pneumonia and give suitable antibiotic treatment rather than misdiagnose a cold and send the child home where they may die.
Organisation
Nossal Institute for Global Health
Team
A/Prof Jim Black
Dr Samin Karim
Marie Gerdtz, Pat Nicholson, Di Crellin, Laura Browning, Julie Simpson, Lauren Bell and Nick Santamaria - Nossal Institute, University of Melbourne School of Population Health and Department of Nursing and Physiotheraphy
Researchers of the Malaria Consortium
Health
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