3 minute read
IN SEARCH OF AFFORDABLE HEALTH TECHNOLOGY
CAMPUS NEWS
“Good health and well-being’ are one of the global Sustainable Development Goals set by the UN for 2030. Emerging technologies such as AI, 3-D printing, wearables, and nanotechnology are making an important contribution to this. However, the high costs make the applications almost too inaccessible in the less affluent regions in the world. That is exactly the challenge the new Leuven Research Centre for Affordable Health Technology wants to take up.”
Since this year, Campus Group T houses a new, multidisciplinary research centre. Ten professors and researchers from the departments of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science join forces to develop medical technology that is affordable and usable in countries and regions where there are insufficient financial or logistical resources to install sophisticated and expensive applications. The centre mainly focusses on the Global South.
‘Capacity building is another important objective’
Ethiopia
“That Group T Campus plays a pioneering role in this is no coincidence,” says Professor Luc Geurts, Director of the new centre. “Of the research groups, almost half are working on health-related technologies. In the past three years, we have been establishing a master-after-master in Innovative Health Technology that attracts students from the Global South. Furthermore, the campus has been cooperating with universities from Ethiopia for over 15 years now. Students but also lecturers come to Leuven to work on health issues in their country.” One such student was Melkamu Hunegnaw Asmare from Addis Ababa University. He did his PhD in Leuven on the detection of rheumatic heart disease in young people and has been coordinator of the research centre since 2023.
Screening
What should we imagine by affordable health technology? Melkamu gives the example of a project carried out by an Ethiopian PhD student at Group T Campus. It involves the timely detection of the pernicious eye disease glaucoma. “Currently, around 60 million individuals worldwide suffer from glaucoma, a number projected to exceed 111 million by 2040,” Melkamu explains. “Ethiopia, in particular, faces a high prevalence of glaucoma, which contributes to vison loss despite being preventable if detected early. Early-stage screening is crucial for halting disease progression. However, the scarcity of ophthalmology professionals, along with limited access to expensive medical equipment in primary healthcare centres, amplifies the threat of glaucoma in rural areas where the majority of Ethiopia’s population resides.”
“In this project, a comprehensive approach combining subjective and objective assessments were developed to evaluate and predict glaucoma,” Melkamu continued. “It resulted in a low-cost and portable glaucoma visual field screening platform for the early detection of glaucoma, using a smartphone and a virtual reality headset. The application was first thoroughly tested at the University Hospital of Leuven and then successfully trialled with enough volunteer participants in Ethiopia. The cost-effective and user-friendly application will soon be launched for early glaucoma screening in the rural areas.”
Network
Besides developing and implementing accessible health technology, the centre has other goals in mind. One of them is to build a network with academic and industrial partners. “You need such a network to build prototypes but also to train people to work with the technology on site,” says Professor Geurts. Capacity building is another important objective to ensure the sustainability of the projects in distant and often remote regions. And -last but not least- there is fundraising. “The technologies we develop may be affordable, but setting up such projects also presupposes a sustainable source of funding,” Professor Geurts concludes.
Yves Persoons
www.set.kuleuven.be/caht
