Telemedicine platform for Congo

Description of proposed project

Hi, I'm Manoj. I’m working with someone from the WHO in DRC who knows me from a previous role in Rwanda where we provided a similar service.

There is an ongoing humanitarian crisis in East-Congo. There is no effective government and all physicians have fled after armed groups took over. In the Kivu and Ituri regions, there are ~8 million internally displaced persons who require essential healthcare. Armed groups, however, do not allow humanitarian aid workers into their controlled areas, blocking any sort of healthcare. More so, in the context of this humanitarian disaster, it is expected that there are infectious disease outbreaks requiring urgent medical attention.

While there are no physicians present, local pharmacies and laboratories are mostly still able to operate. If we’re able to establish a telemedicine service, patients will be able to get appropriate diagnoses, tests and prescriptions. Without this, the risk of purchasing and taking ineffective or even harmful medication is high. This is not only a health risk, it is wasteful and an unnecessary cost to vulnerable patients.

We have gathered a team to build a telemedicine service, and provide consultations by certified physicians in this crisis situation. This will increase the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of medical care by prescribing appropriate treatment and ending wasteful healthcare. Through telemedicine, we can provide safe, effective healthcare for the major infectious diseases, like malaria, hemorrhagic fever, HIV and cholera, as well as treat chronic conditions to prevent expensive complications, such as diabetes and hypertension.

On top of providing essential healthcare, we will be able to generate essential data on disease outbreaks to the outside world. This will draw attention to the conflict, and help attract funding for relief and aid work in this region.

Dr Kitoko has a network of Congolese physicians from North-Kivu, and knows the operators of many of the pharmacies. With a functioning telemedicine platform, he will be able to offer safe, effective healthcare, and scale quickly to reach all those in need.

We seek seed funding to launch and pilot a telemedicine service in East-Congo and provide free consultations. We will gather impact metrics to evaluate the safety and (cost)-effectiveness of the service to attract more and sustainable funding.

Budget

$11,500 in total
$5000 for 2x months building tech (already spent)
$2500 for 1x months building tech
$1000 for impact estimation & the investment case
$1000 for 3x clinicians part-time
$750 for 1x clinician lead (Dr Kitoko)
$500 mobile network costs
$250 for tech equipment (already spent)
$500 buffer

The goal of the pilot phase is to spend 1 month with a team of clinicians to offer at least 1,000 consultations to gather operational and impact data. In this humanitarian context, we want to offer services for free, covering the cost of telecommunications, physician compensation (not wages) and technology.

Why are you qualified to work on this?

I have already built a telemedicine platform for 4M citizens in Rwanda, conducting 2500/consultations/day. Having worked for UNAIDS and Gates funded projects for 7 years, I feel confident in rolling out another country-scale telemedicine service. https://www.linkedin.com/in/manojnathwani/

Benjamin Kitoko is the person leading operations in East-Congo. He’s an emergency doctor with 15 years of experience in primary care and mass casualty events. He previously worked for the WHO in Africa to advise on telemedicine in fragile health systems.

Charlie Nederpelt MD PhD MPH is physician-researcher and health economist specializing in healthcare impact estimation and cost-effectiveness comparisons. He will run the evaluation to estimate the health impact realized, and he will write the investment case for continued funding.

What would you do if not funded?

We will continue to seek funding as I cannot continue to self-fund it. I have already invested two months of my own full-time personal.

How much money do you need?

$11,500