Today we woke up early to meet with the medical superintendent of Makeni Regional Hospital. We started the conversation telling him about our venture and how we are looking to expand it. His main concerns were about how effective CHWs will be in reading the color change. He was telling us that many may be colorblind or that the change is not drastic enough to detect. He told us that at the hospital, over treatment is very common. He suggested that we need to continuously compare our strips against the gold standard to ensure it is producing accurate results.
He told us that hepatitis B is slowly becoming an epidemic in Sierra Leone, and so a rapid diagnostic test (RDT) would be extremely helpful. Hepatitis B can be active or latent, so a test that can tell you what stage it is in would be even more helpful to ensure proper treatment.
Another rising infection is curable STIs, such as chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis. They are seeing a lot of pregnant women, who are screening positive for syphilis late in their pregnancy. They all had originally screened negative a few months before. A nurse at the hospital figured out that the diagnostic they are using for syphilis has a 90% chance of a false positive for pregnant women in their last month of pregnancy. Also, a 90% chance of a false positive when the patient has malaria. We are not sure why they use this test when malaria is so prevalent. This leads to many people being diagnosed and treated for something they don’t actually have.
He emphasized the importance of sensitization and proper marketing of Ukweli so people become familiar with the brand and understand how it will help them. He gave us suggestions of radio stations and different healthcare stakeholders.
pictured: The Medical Superintendent
We then went to the hospital laboratory to see the different RDTs they use. They seemed to only use a 10 parameter strip, rather than specific parameter strips like ours.
After visiting the hospital, we went back to World Hope to finalize our training and employee documents. Tomorrow is our last day in Makeni :(
Pictured: the laboratory services sheet