More improvements on the way for tracking gadget that helps mothers

Dahabo Adi Galgalo, a trained medical laboratory technologist-cum-epidemiologist from Marsabit County, is spending sleepless nights together with her engineering experts to come up with a prototype global positioning system (GPS) tracker with a potential to transform healthcare.

The hybrid GPS tracker is designed to help healthcare workers to reach unreached populations to give and improve maternal and infant health in northern Kenya.

The lifesaving tracker will be a real-time location tracking 4G device fitted with an emergency button. 

The device enables a health worker to monitor the expectants’ location any time and from anywhere.

After receiving the signal from the GPS device, the satellite relays back the holder’s position via a Web-based application through SMS.

The emergency buttons in the GPS tracker activate to reach out to caregivers who are even able to call for ambulance evacuation if need be.

“Having been born in a nomadic community, I dream of developing people-centred solutions that can positively transform healthcare delivery through building tech-enabled healthcare that can consequently drive sustained impacts,” Ms Galgalo told Healthy Nation in a phone interview.

She added that plans are afoot to revamp her innovation that took the world by storm in 2017.

A team of mechanical, electrical, and computer engineers, she said, have finished the first phase of modernising her GPS tracker.

Placing the completion rate at 60 percent, Ms Galgalo noted that the second phase is ongoing. The product will be finished in the third phase.

She is also working with Amref to install her GPS tracker with a “Save Our Souls”  (SOS) component that will allow it to function optimally in achieving favourable outcomes in the war against maternal and infant deaths.

Ms Galgalo, who has a diploma in medical laboratory science, is a registered medical laboratory technologist with Kenya Medical Laboratory Technology and Technician Board. 

She also has a degree in medical laboratory science and a Master’s in field epidemiology and is currently pursuing a PhD in public health with specialisation in reproductive health.

 She said the upgraded version of the GSP tracker will greatly revolutionise the healthcare, security, agriculture, and livestock sector as soon as it is launched.

One of its features will be allowing health workers to set up several geofence areas on their mobile apps to help them receive alerts when the expectant mothers move within and outside the geo-fenced regions. 

The device has been designed to be durable, splash-resistant, eco-friendly, and to be worn around the wrist by mothers.

Ms Galgalo is optimistic that upon its inauguration, it can also be used to track people with other medical conditions such as memory loss, Alzheimer’s, Autism, Parkinson’s, dementia, TB, among others.

Additionally, the device will go a long way in tracking immunisation defaulters and boost immunisation uptakes among pastoralists.

She also looks forward to convincing security agencies to adopt the gadget to help in combating cattle rustling or even ethnic conflicts in the hotspots in the Northern Rift.

Her idea was conceptualised in 2017 when she was a resident at the Kenya Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Programme, during her routine epidemiological research in the Moyale sub-county that established that nearly 80 percent of pastoralists in the area were not attending prenatal and antenatal visits in the region.

Later, she came up with the idea to use a GPS device that is fitted onto the cultural jewellery on the wrists of expectant mothers and relays signals to satellites in space. 

Serving as the Moyale Level 5 Hospital laboratory coordinator, she was able to collect and access critical data.

Her spearheaded study that followed mothers who gave birth at a regional hospital showed that, of the 1,042 mothers who delivered during the one year, 116 lost their babies during delivery. Of these, 40 percent had never visited an antenatal care clinic.

Those who visited often travelled between 50 and 80 kilometres.

Due to the remoteness of their villages, they failed to get laboratory profiling and diagnosis during prenatal, antenatal, and post-natal care.

Several outreach campaigns were immediately mounted after she had shared her concerns with the sub-county health management and other stakeholders who also agreed that there was an urgent need for action.

During their outreach programmes, she noted that at least 80 percent of pastoralist mothers did not pay at least 8 visits to health facilities as prescribed by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

This, in return, enables healthcare workers to pinpoint the gadget holder within or without cellular network coverage. 

It tracks them wherever they are, to ensure they do not skip their clinic appointments. The gadget has facilitated enhanced location and monitoring of women’s pregnancies and health-seeking behaviour, making a huge impact on maternal care, and combating infant mortality. 

In its first phase of implementation, it has reduced maternal mortality, increased immunisation coverage, antenatal visits, skilled deliveries, and early screening of other medical conditions.

The invention of lifesaving technology has directly saved at least 237 mothers and indirectly benefited at least over 5,000 nomadic communities.

Her quest for coming up with a longstanding solution to the rampant maternal and infant mortalities in the region was also inspired after losing her two babies to miscarriages.

Ms Galgalo is an acclaimed innovator who won a grant from the Grand Challenge Africa 2017 funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She was one of the top six winners from Africa who were awarded Sh10 million each. 

She also won Innovate for Life Challenge in 2020 by Amref, and the Kenya National Innovate award under the medical technology category in 2020 by Kenya National Innovation Agency, which saw her receive Sh800,000. 

Additionally, she was awarded the Health Innovation Award by the Marsabit First Lady, and she is a Fellow of the Centre for the Advancement of Sustainable Medical Innovation.

Marsabit County is among the pastoralist counties that have been posting maternal and infant mortalities of up to four times the global estimates.

The WHO says infant and maternal mortality rates are unacceptably high across the globe.

These deaths are caused by complications mothers experience during, and after giving birth.

Complications include haemorrhaging, infection, and eclampsia, among others. While infant and maternal mortality rates occur more in developing nations, it is an issue that affects women worldwide.

The northern Kenya region’s maternal deaths are about 860 annually, largely due to low access to health services, prevalent illiteracy, retrogressive cultural practices and beliefs, remoteness, and vastness of the county.

The implementation of the first phase of the device between 2017 and 2020, saw massive milestones with antenatal visits increasing from 30 to 70 percent.

The beneficiaries were from 10 sites including Qilta, Laqi, El-raya, Teso, Erwedhe, Funandimo, Yaballo Goda, Chiracha, Qalaliwe, and Antut areas in Moyale.

Odda location, for instance, witnessed an increase in antenatal care from 50 clients in 2017, to 272 clients in 2018.

Averagely, the track-and-save services increased ANC visits from 16 to 80 percent between 2017 and 2020.

The GPS tracker has continued to gain traction and popularity and several organisations have been writing in request to adopt it and are yet to get the green light till its full upgrading.

Ms Galgalo says that despite there being no active programmes ongoing, she plans to strengthen her Track & Save a Life community-based organisation, which was registered in 2018, and turn it into a non-governmental organisation to serve the region upon her return from Europe.

And after visiting several health facilities during her stay in Europe, she has been convinced that technology is the way to go for Africa.

“Rejection shouldn’t be something you should take to heart and whenever you have made something your top priority. You should never listen to the naysayers,” Ms Galgalo added.

She recounted how she had to wax up her ears several times after sharing her ideas with some colleagues who only turned out to be naysayers.

She has commended other health workers who had a great impact in the county, such as Qaballe Duba and Dhahabo Abagaro and appealed to others to emulate them.

Moyale Sub-County Superintendent Ibrahim Kontoma praised the innovation for increasing healthcare services accessibility in far-flung areas.

He added that the device has helped solve the home and transport delays of patients to health facilities.

Speaking at the ceremony held in Moyale town in November 2021, the Kenya National Innovation Agency’s CEO, Dr Tonny Omwansa, commended Ms Galgallo’s efforts.

“This is a big challenge to other professionals to remember home and make sure their achievements also benefit their communities,” Dr Omwansa said.

He called on other professionals to give back to society when they develop ground-breaking and lifesaving innovations as Ms Galgallo did.

 The KNIA boss promised to ask the government to adopt the device so that it is cascaded in addressing other health challenges like TB and Covid-19 contact tracing.

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