Ghana: Scientists have designed beads to help diagnosis pneumonia

Ghanaian scientists at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, have designed beads to educate mothers to accurately monitor children’s respiratory rates to detect early stages of pneumonia.

According to Unicef, pneumonia accounts for approximately 2 400 deaths per day in children younger than five years old. WHO estimates that in 2015 pneumonia accounted for the 16 per cent of the deaths of children younger than five years old, with Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia bearing the greatest burden of the disease.

Beads to educate mothers

The beads project which was implemented with US$10,000 funding from the Danish International Development Agency through the Building Stronger Universities initiative, seeks to evaluate the socio-cultural understanding of pneumonia and the level of confidence among women in counting respiratory rates and detecting signs of pneumonia (Daniel Ansong, Lead researcher).

Local beads designer and a multidisciplinary research team gathered to  created the beads using materials such as twisted nylon twine and heat-pressed polyester flags.

100 postpartum women attending child welfare clinics at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), Ghana were recruited for this project. With the help of videos, they were able to educate the mothers on use of the beads and supplied one-minute sand timers to help the users count respiratory rates.

The intervention was implemented from July to September 2016, “after eight weeks, about 85 per cent of the mothers accurately counted respiratory rates using the beads.”

The interpretation of the colour coding used to design the beads is similar to that of traffic light (Francis Adjei Osei): if a mother is able to count the respiratory rate of a child together with the beads and it falls in the green zone for a particular age then it’s normal. If the count falls within the yellow, then it is above normal and the mother needs to count again and observe. If within the red zone, the mother needs to count the child’s respiratory rate again, and if after several counts it remains in the red zone, the mother needs to visit the hospital.

The initiative should be incorporated into the World Pneumonia Day annually held on 12 November and is celebrated in Ghana to help educate new mothers and help fight the disease (Kofi Mensah Boateng).

Source: Scidev