By Katie Mcevinney
The latest version of VetAfrica Mobile helps users in East Africa and delivers better service than current methods.
The output of an independent clinical study in Ethiopia evaluating the effectiveness of VetAfrica shows the strength of the mobile health application designed for farmers and vets in Africa.
The study shows VetAfrica to be effective, catering for 80% of cattle diseases commonly found in rural Ethiopia. A 70% level of agreement was shown between veterinary users and the application when diagnosing livestock. These statistics underline the effectiveness and performance of VetAfrica in the field and means farmers and less experienced veterinary professionals, can now receive credible content and decision support via VetAfrica, allowing them to help treat livestock and save animals faster.
This is a significant development for the East African focused tech company, as it validates the latest diagnostic approach, and provides evidence that users with the VetAfrica smartphone app can correctly diagnose animals. This model and proven approach is now being applied in Kenya, Uganda and as the company grows, across the entire African continent in a cost effective, fast and repeatable manner to help combat livestock disease.
Addis Ababa University College of Veterinary Medicine, who coordinated the field elements of the study, used the application and smartphone devices for four months, recording over 1,000 cases, as the app became an integral part of the daily working lives of the clinical practice of their final year veterinarians.
The Dean of College of Veterinary Medicine and Agriculture, Dr Dinka Ayana said: “We are excited to utilise this technology to improve veterinary healthcare in our country, and the lives of those who rely on it.”
This evidence will act as a catalyst to speed up delivery of the VetAfrica product across Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda via an existing distribution network of private and public sector organisations to reach the tens of millions of farmers, extension staff and vets across the continent that may benefit from VetAfrica.
Craig Taylor, CEO of Cojengo stated: “This is a huge milestone for us, we’ve been working on ground breaking new methods of performing diagnosis on a smartphone since the inception of Cojengo, to finally have statistically credible results from the field will give us the blueprint and model to scale a proven design and product.”
Given the success of VetAfrica Mobile, Cojengo have now extended their product range to include an online data analysis tool and the VetAfrica Expert range to help adapt the diagnostic engine for new markets. This has resulted in the VetAfrica Suite, the continent’s first integrated product range to aid diagnosis, collect data from the field faster, make sense of it and target resources more effectively.
Reference -
http://cver.upei.ca/news/successful-completion-initial-clinical-field-trial-using-smart-phone-based-diagnostic-tool-ethi