(A column highlighting scientific, technological, engineering and design innovation in Africa)
Arthur Zang, a 24-year-old Cameroonian computer engineer, invented the CardioPad, the world’s first portable, fully touch-screen device that facilitates diagnostic testing and treatment of patients for heart disease from remote locations.
The tablet is used as a classical electrocardiograph device. Unlike the electrocardiograph, which is printed, the CardioPad transmits data electronically and stores the data for subsequent transmission and review.
During an examination, electrodes are placed on the patient’s heart and connected to a module, which, in turn, transmits the heart signal via Bluetooth interface to the CardioPad. The heartbeats, heart rate, and intervals between each beat displayed on the CardioPad are then transmitted wirelessly from the examiner’s tablet to that of the cardiologist, who then interprets them. Software built into the device allows the doctor to give computer-assisted diagnosis.
Because electricity outages are constant in many remote regions of Africa, the CardioPad is equipped with a built-in battery that lasts more than seven hours. Moreover, it can be adjusted for the treatment of other diseases.
Zang, who was trained in Cameroon at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure Polytechnique (ENSP) in Yaoundé, started his research in 2010 and carried out several tests that received validation from the Cameroonian scientific community. “The reliability is 97.5 percent,” he says.
Given the scarcity of heart surgeons in Cameroon, heart disease patients often have to schedule appointments months in advance and travel to the capital cities of either Douala or Yaoundé to be examined. “[The CardioPad] is a an invention that could save numerous human lives,” Zang says.
Samuel Kingue, M.D., head cardiology of the Yaoundé General Hospital in Cameroon, praises Zang’s device and urges support for it. “I have tested the CardioPad and the results are quite satisfactory,” he says.
Zang intends to make the CardioPad more affordable and hopes that hospitals will then lower the cost of the medical examinations. A finalist in the 2012 Cameroon Professional Society’s Distinguished Award for the Sciences, he is still seeking funding to mass-produce the device. He hopes to set up a company to help improve the medical care system in Cameroon.
