Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) are about to start a clinical study of the ResAppDx mobile app in a lower income rural context setting. Developed by ResApp Health, the application can diagnose pneumonia and other common respiratory diseases in children.
MSF is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organization that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, healthcare exclusion and natural disasters. The organization has been providing input to ResApp to ensure that the app is suitable to be used in humanitarian settings and lower middle income countries.
“We are very pleased with the collaboration to date and we have used the feedback obtained to refine ResAppDx even further for the difficult environments in which MSF operates,” Dr. Tony Keating, CEO and Managing Director of ResApp, said in a statement. “We are looking forward to evaluating the clinical performance of ResAppDx in some of the most challenging conditions that doctors encounter.”
ResApp’s solution relies on cough-based diagnostic technology that has been further expanded last month through the exclusive worldwide license agreement with UniQuest, the main commercialization company of The University of Queensland. UniQuest has developed a technology that relies on commonly-taken measurements such as heart rate, temperature, presence of chest in-drawing or oxygen saturation to screen for childhood pneumonia.
Also earlier last month, the company announced the extension of the SMARTCOUGH-C study to generate statistically strong results and maximize the range of diseases included in its forthcoming de novo submission to the FDA.
According to the World Health Organization, pneumonia kills more than 950,000 children under five every year. Many such deaths are caused by delays in diagnosis due to the lack of high-quality medical care in these regions.