Solar Empowered Phototherapy Unit for Low Resource Areas

Phototherapy is a pediatrics medical device used to treat jaundice in neonates. Jaundice is yellowish skin in neonates. Neonatal jaundice occurs in at least 60% of term infants around the world. It needs phototherapy for treatment. If it is untreated by phototherapy light, it can cause irreversible brain damage and other infections. Due to lack of phototherapy units many neonates are exposed to aforementioned health problems and death.In remote areas health facilities with thousands of deliveries there is lack of and absence of this machine. Because exiting machines extremely expensive and not affordable. To solve this prioritized problem in our region I have been developing Solar Empowered LED phototherapy machines with new features. It also works with electricity. It is optimized for low resource settings with limited power supply. We made it low cost, affordable, easy to manipulate, maintain and transport. The unit integrates baby treatment time, hour meter, Irradiance controller and bilirubin level indicator. 70% of its functional prototype has completed. The rest of development progress has moving well towards scalable stage with both LED&CFL versions. After its scalability its impact is real BIG! It can offer services for 15 million population community my district where there are more than 15,000 deliveries per year. For this accomplishment, I got awards from Vilgro Kenya, African entrepreneurship Award, Toney Elemelu entrepreneurship Program and Jimma University.