Denga Platform

According to world bank statistics, Over 3.4 billion people in the world are living in rural remote areas, with the Subsaharan rural population being at 667.4 million people. low-income population, long-distance to access adequate healthcare services, poor public transport, and inaccessible roads which creates barriers to the timely provision of healthcare. According to GENEVA (International labor organization ) report shows that 56% of people living in rural areas worldwide do not have access to essential healthcare services more than double the figure in urban areas. 

Subsaharan Africa has over 98,745 health facilities that are providing health care services to 667.4 million people. unfortunately, most of these facilities face tremendous challenges in receiving life-saving medical supplies or sending laboratory samples for laboratory testing due to road infrastructural barriers, mountainous areas, Flood plains, or geographical locations. This leads to a shortage in medical stores, blood, medicines, and maternal drugs. Because of this, 98,745 million people lack access to life-saving healthcare services leading to prolonged illness, complications, and preventable deaths. 

The WHO states that over 810 women die daily from preventable pregnancy-related complications with 2/3 in Subsaharan Africa. A woman's lifetime risk of maternal death in Subsaharan Africa is 1 in 59, far higher than the risk in all low-income countries, estimated at 1 in 160. 

Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the highest under-five mortality and low childhood immunization region in the world. Children in Sub-Saharan Africa are 15 times more likely to die than children from high-income countries. In sub-Saharan Africa, more than half of under-five deaths are preventable through immunization. In 2019 5.2 million children died, and about 14,000 children still die every day worldwide. Children continue to experience widespread geographic inequalities in their chances of survival. The region had an average child mortality rate of 76 deaths per 1000 live births in 2019. Over 80% of the 5.2 million child deaths occurred in sub-Saharan Africa.

Zambia a country in southern Africa, is one of the Subsaharan African countries with a rural population of 10.2 million people. It has over 1600 rural health facilities that are serving its rural population. unfortunately, these rural health facilities face tremendous challenges in receiving life-saving medical supplies such as blood, medicines, vaccines, test kits, and contraceptives or sending lab samples for laboratory testing due to road infrastructural barriers or geographical location. The ministry of health Zambia state that over 478 rural health facilities are cut off from receiving essential medical commodities due to road network barriers.

In Zambia, more than 2 million mothers give birth annually and over 70% do not have access to quality maternal health services. The 2020 UNFPA-Zambia report indicates that the maternal mortality rate stands at 278/per 100,000 live births which are still unacceptably high from their target of 100/100,000 live births which are outlined in the National health strategic plan.  It's unacceptable that over 8 mothers die daily from preventable complications. The leading cause of maternal mortality in Zambia is postpartum hemorrhage (bleeding after birth) and this is because health facilities do not have quality logistics infrastructure to receive life-saving medicines, oxytocin, blood, and contraceptives leading to reduced capacity to respond to emergencies.

Western province is one of the ten provinces of Zambia with a population of 1.2 million people and 179 rural health facilities. its the least developed province, the second poorest (82/100) people live in poverty, low use of contraception services, high teenage pregnancies (40.4%). 

The western province of Zambia is associated with the barotse flood plains which is one of Africa's great wetlands and it leaves parts of the province flooded during the rainy season. Health facilities that are located near the plains are cut off during the rainy season for 3 to 6 months because the roads become inaccessible. community members in these areas are advised to relocate if they are to access healthcare services. This is unacceptable, in these communities, there are pregnant mothers that need a safe delivery, childbearing women that need family planning services, pregnant mothers with chronic conditions that are a risk to pregnancy, under-five children that need routine vaccinations, chronic patients e.g living with HIV/Aids, hypertension or diabetes that need routine checkup and refill of drugs. 

We are bridging the challenge of poor access to life-saving healthcare services due to the road infrastructural gap by leveraging a data-driven platform, drone technology, and motorbikes to transport essential medical commodities such as medicines, blood, vaccines, test kits, and contraceptives to hard reached health facilities and pickup lab samples for laboratory testing. 

We have developed a digital health platform that automates and optimizes lab reports. it allows healthcare providers to request or schedule a medical supply delivery or pickup of lab samples. 

The use of drones in medical supplies has proved to be fast and cost-effective. At Denga Logistics, we have developed a digital health platform that is optimizing and automating lab reports and allows healthcare providers to request or schedule for delivery of maternal drugs or pick up of lab samples. Currently, we have a working prototype on the android application, though requests are also made via SMS, email, and phone calls. Once laboratory investigations are done lab results are sent back electronically via the platform. Our platform uses AI and machine learning to understand the medical supply demands of each health facility and route optimization for the fastest and shortest route. 

We have partnered with two drone manufacturing companies that will supply us with custom-made drones according to our specifications. These drones can travel up to a 120Km distance, improving the delivery time by 65%. They will be able to make a delivery in less than an hour, unlike vehicles that take more than 6hrs to days and sometimes not even possible. They have a payload of 10kg which is enough to transport life serving maternal drugs, blood, contraceptives, and medical samples. 

 The drones have an inbuilt controlled cooling system that allows them to accommodate blood, vaccines, or any injectable medicines that require refrigeration at 2°C to 8°C. They also have a positive climate impact, they use rechargeable batteries and do not emit any greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide resulting in a 56% reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, unlike one vehicle that contributes 4.6 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.  

When a nurse, clinician, or birth attendant is out of stock with either contraceptive drugs, oxytocin, or blood they can easily schedule for a delivery or request for an emergency delivery via the platform. The platform also helps them manage and monitor their inventory. 

Currently, Africa's rural health facilities lack the capacity to receive essential medical supplies due to a lack of proper communications channels and road network barriers. Our platform equips rural health facilities to have proper communication channels with district health facilities and provides them with a fast and cost-effective logistics system that equips them to respond to emergencies and manage pregnant mothers effectively. 

In Zambia for example, land cruisers, motorbikes, oxcarts, and sometimes boats are used to take life-saving medical commodities to hard-reached health facilities. During the rainy season, it's unacceptable that the roads become inaccessible and over 472 health facilities are cut off.

The solution serves health workers, patients, lab technicians, especially in underserved communities. Currently, these population groups do not have an efficient health supply & service chain. This problem is magnified during the rainy season when road networks are flooded.

Our solution will be able to supplement the efforts been made by governments and international humanitarian organizations like UNFPA to achieve the 58% prevalence of Family planning and reduce the unmet need for family planning to 14% across Sub-Sahara Africa. Our drones will be able to transport modern contraceptive methods such as Depot Medroxy Progesterone Acetate even to the most remote areas of Sub-Sahara Africa like the Mutaa health facility in Zambia which is 782 km from the capital city and 181Kms from the district hospital. 

Also, the drone network will be able to deliver oxytocin or blood for transfusion to a bleeding mother who is giving birth or having a postpartum hemorrhage. Delivery will be made in less than an hour depending on the location of a facility, unlike the current situation where mothers are supposed to travel a long distance to go to a district hospital or ambulance takes 4hrs to 8hrs to pick them up and transport them to a higher health facility. 

We will be able to transport antihypertensive drugs to be given to known hypertensive mothers that are expecting to prevent pre-eclampsia which contributes to 63,000 maternal deaths annually worldwide. 

Our management team has over 20 years of experience in startups, clinical medicine, software engineering, and business development. This colossal challenge resonates with the founders having worked in healthcare facilities where patients are affected by poor access to maternal health.

Denga Logistics is formally registered in Zambia and works closely with partners like Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA): incubation support, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Zambia office, and United Nations Development Program: for collaboration and acceleration of solutions, Dawa Health: a digital health platform democratizing access to maternal + neonatal health

First, we are raising more pre-seed financing through grants to help drive useful insights to iterate the Denga Platform solution before looking for VC funding.

The Denga team is looking out for experienced advisory members with global experience in venture capital and healthcare financing to help the team navigate the raising of capital and strategy to scale across the low-and-middle-income countries.

The Denga Platform solution is a multi-layer system. Firstly, we have a health platform that enables health workers to create orders that can be fulfilled by riders at a commission. This support is decentralizing lab services to facilities without in-house lab capabilities.

Secondly, post-partum (bleeding after giving birth) high-risk mothers can have on-demand provisional blood delivered to them in health facilities without in-house blood banks. 

Thirdly, we are leveraging a drone network with a cold chain capability to supply distant health facilities that are usually cut off from the supply chain, especially during the rainy season.

Our solution is effective by decentralizing lab and blood bank services to facilities that do not have in-house capabilities. Also, we are hauling motorbike riders who fulfill tasks on the platform creating income for them. 

Our platform has been built in Javascript & PHP, mobile apps in Dart, and chatbots in Python. The platforms use APIs to integrate with other services and automate the onboarding and support of riders and health workers.

1. phase one; next 12 months 

Improving the Denga digital health platform + improving the business model using insights from pilots. we need to have a full working system that will act as a communication channel for requests for medical supplies and pickups of medical samples. Deliverables: 

1. provide efficiency in medical report optimization + automate medical sample/ supplies collection process

2. leveraging motorbike network to connect local health facilities without lab services and cold storage facilities (for blood products) with the state of the art laboratories and blood banks 

NB- (research shows over 70% of private health facilities do not have lab services to provide an end-to-end service)

3. provide cold-chain transportation box to riders that meets the WHO standard of cold storage transportation

4. pilot medical drone program in the western province of Zambia which is one of UNFPA- Zambia target provinces

2. phase two; 3 to 5 year; (drone pilot program)

In this phase, we intend to scale the solution to 7 countries in Southern Africa starting with those with the most delidated healthcare system 

this phase is divided into; 

A. drone scale-up

we intend to procure a fleet of 25 drones to serve the region & introduce a drone pilots program and traffic controllers

B. motorbike network expansion

the program will certify and recruit more riders to earn money through the platform 

The scale will reach over 5 million people in the region 

Denga Logistics KPIs

1. Number of riders on the platform

2. Number of health facilities on the platform

3. Number of tasks fulfilled each month

4. Fleet size of drones and trips completed

5. Geographical reach of denga services

Our Denga Platform solution is creating a source of income for thousands of bike riders across Sub-Sahara Africa who are signing up on the platform. The Denga Platform model is providing commission to the riders to inturn using their bikes to support health facilities & patients in communities. We payout about $3.00 per local trip on the platform. 

Also, we are preventing thousands of patients from dying from inefficient health services that are not evidence-based. Lastly, our model enables us to provide quality health support with minimum capital in assets.

There are several projects around Sub-Sahara Africa that are building on-demand lab services & health delivery services like Ethiopia's lifebank. This is a scalable service in Sub-Sahara Africa because there's a huge gap in services & a big supply of riders with motorbikes.

We measure impact by the number of tasks completed on the platform, the number of riders active on the platform, the total commission riders, the number of health facilities on the platform. 

Our platform has been built in Javascript & PHP, mobile apps in Dart, and chatbots in Python. The platforms use APIs to integrate with other services and automate the onboarding and support of riders and health workers.

The current Denga Logistics management team includes 3 executives from different countries and ethnic groups. The diverse team has experience in different sectors of the economy bringing their wealth of knowledge and networks. 

Denga is in the process of setting up a diverse advisory team with current members from countries like Canada and Rwanda. Our current inclusion strategy is leveraging the network of motorbike riders who are mostly from low-income communities in Sub-Sahara Africa.

Lastly, we are working with underserved health facilities to increase their capability in supporting their immediate communities.

Our Denga Platform solution is creating a source of income for thousands of motorbike riders who are signing up on the platform to fulfill tasks. The Denga model is providing commission to the riders using their bikes and time to deliver tasks on the platform. We pay out about $3.00 for every local task completed. 

We charge $1.00 for transport & lab results notification cost per patient for routine tests. We ride haul the lab tests to optimize cost. We charge $4.00 for urgent tests per patient.

Also, we are still testing our enterprise model tailored for humanitarian organizations and corporates.

We are funding our work through:

grants UNFPA, UNDP, 

service offering to patients and partner organizations who need to provide maternal health services to select communities

Investment capital we are currently raising a pre-seed round of investment to fund the pilot process

We have received grants from UNFPA, UNDP,