HBS Student Creates Smartphone App To Detect Malaria

Re:HBS Student Creates Smartphone App To Detect Malaria by shaggyfrog on Friday July 08, 2011 @02:00PM (#2743430)

You have some false assumptions in your argument, mainly that it's just as easy to train and distribute humans across Africa (and elsewhere) to do malaria diagnosis as it is to develop and distribute copies of this software.

Moreover, as the software is improved, updating the software -- and raising the baseline of quality -- is a unique advantage over the "just use humans" solution.

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Re:HBS Student Creates Smartphone App To Detect Malaria by marshray on Friday July 08, 2011 @02:34PM (#2743560)

The scenario is not "download an app and it detects malaria".

The scenario is "person trained to work with blood samples without spreading/contracting HIV deployed into field packing a small digital microscope and support software built on WP7." This person is likely already doing a variety of other community medicine and is the closest thing to a medical doctor many of their patients will ever see.

There's no argument against giving the practicioner a helpful tool, only that it may be automating an insignificant part of the overall problem (looking at the image).

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