In rural Kenya, 64-year-old John Kamau’s world of silence is about to alter. For a long time, isolated by hearing loss from the community’s vibrant life and his grandchildren’s conversations, he sees hope when a community medical expert visits with a smartphone in hand.
This isn’t just any visit; it’s the gateway to Kamau’s reconnection with the world, facilitated by breakthrough digital health tools on a smartphone.
A revolutionary hearing test app on the smartphone conducts precise assessments, followed by the availability of low-cost, high-quality hearing aids right there after which.
With these aids, programmed to his specific hearing profile using Bluetooth, Kamau can participate in peculiar conversations and listen to his grandchildren laugh.
Kamau is considered one of many whose lives are being transformed through a high-tech, soft-touch approach: advanced digital technologies delivered through trained members of a community.
Africa’s silent epidemic
In Africa, an estimated 136 million individuals are currently living with hearing loss, a figure expected to swell to 337 million by 2050.
This silent epidemic has profound social and economic repercussions contributing to a world cost of untreated hearing loss estimated at US$980 billion annually.
In Africa it’s exacerbated by a dire shortage of audiologists, with fewer than one for every million peopleand the prohibitive costs of hearing aids for a lot of in low- to middle-income countries.
Only 2% of those that need hearing aids in Africa wear them.
There can be a widespread lack of know-how of the condition.
Revolutionising access to hearing care
I’m a professor of audiology on the University of Pretoria where – working along with the World Health Organization and the hearX Foundation – we’ve developed digital devices getting used to check hearing loss across Africa.
We are pioneering community-based hearing care The initiatives in low-income communities in Kenya, in addition to in Khayelitsha, Gugulethu, Mbekweni, Atteridgeville and the Eastern Cape province in South Africa.
1.) A screening app for youngsters
We have trained local people members to conduct hearing screenings in early childhood development centres. Close to 50,000 children have been tested at a price of lower than US$6 per child.
Hearing loss is particularly traumatic for youngsters because it hampers language development and learning and leaves them at an obstacle for all times.
Community medical experts need minimal training to perform screenings with a easy screening app on an Android smartphone with calibrated headphones.
The app monitors noise in real time to ensure the environment are quiet enough for the test. Parents receive a text message with their child’s results and next steps if further interventions are needed.
Community staff also can do eye tests on the identical device in lower than three minutes.
2.) Early child development training
We’ve launched a mobile health (mHealth) training programme specializing in ear and hearing ability for teachers in early childhood development centres.
Daily multimedia WhatsApp messages train teachers to discover hearing problems. Teachers are taught to evaluate if a baby needs to maneuver to the front of the category or to go for a hearing test.
The programme has already successfully trained hundreds of teachers across South Africa.
3.) Screening adults
Our collaboration with the World Health Organization has led to the creation of the hearWHO app, an official tool for screening adults.
The app features an easy-to-use test that plays numbers with a background noise and asks users to press on these numbers. Taking just two to a few minutes to finish, the test has reached nearly 500 million people in over 190 countries since 2019.
The app displays user results and keeps a personalised track record of their hearing over time. It is on the market in English, Dutch, Mandarin, Russian and Spanish.
4.) Hearing aids for communities
In a recent feasibility study for the WHO, we explored the availability of hearing aids in low-income communities to tell the recently released WHO guidelines.
Community medical experts, aided by a man-made intelligence system, analysed images of an eardrum. If the eardrum appeared normal – and a hearing loss was detected – she or he may very well be fitted immediately with hearing aids.
We have also partnered with the Clinton Health Access Initiative to expand our screening technology to eight countries in Africa and Asia.
As we proceed to confront the challenges of hearing loss, the trail forward is evident: integrating these revolutionary models into existing healthcare systems is imperative.