Take a slow, deep breath. Imagine holding a long straw; so thin that a toothpick wouldn’t fit through it. Imagine clenching this thin straw between your lips without any leaks. Now try to breathe through that small opening between your pursed lips, using no more, and no less than the tiny gap.
THIS is what asthma feels like, except an asthmatic can’t control it, and – more often than not – they can’t predict when the next attack will happen. Until now.
Moses Kebalepile – a PhD student at the University of Pretoria’s Faculty of Health Sciences – developed a sensor that could warn asthmatics of their risk of an attack. After blowing into the device, it gives the patient their risk of having an attack, helping them prepare and prevent the attack with the necessary medication and behaviour changes. This clever innovation won him a well deserved award on Wednesday 4 January, opening up doors for developing the product by 2018.
Moses has two siblings with asthma, fueling his passion to come up with a solution to support not only them, but many others suffering from this debilitating disease.
“Innovation and technology is the substance of our economic development. And I just want to encourage structures out there to perhaps identify these ideas at an early stage and maybe invest in supporting them earlier.” he says.
Once again, our South Africans show the world how innovation can be used to transform healthcare for all. Well done, Moses. We trust that your brilliant device will save millions of lives in the future!
References:
http://www.enca.com/south-africa/doctoral-student-wins-prize-for-asthma-innovation