Heal My City

Vector Borne Diseases like Malaria, Dengue and Leishmaniasis are major health concern in many rural and urban placements across Pakistan. In early 2018, sudden outbreaks of dengue reaching to 1000 cases were reported in Peshawar, In February 2019, over 21000 cases were reported on Leishmaniasis which became a major health alert 

My solution basically informs about the hygienic practices that should be adopted to prevent the vector borne diseases. It aims to alert people for signs and symptoms. And if they are affected with the disease, they should seek immediate help and never ignore or neglect the conditions till it becomes extremely severe and difficult to treat. It can be used as database to connect doctors, public health workers and general population to connect especially during outbreaks of the disease

The application if scaled global contributes to save millions .

My Solutions Aims to Address the following

1) Accessible in the local languages to stress on the importance of implementing clean practices

2)  Poor sanitation and waste disposal management, contaminated and stagnant water bodies rural and urban regions where they are limited access to proper health facilities these condition favors the breeding of insects like mosquitoes and sand fly that contribute to Dengue and Leishmaniasis. the importance of cleaning those water bodies and avoiding stagnant waters 

3) In the longer run and if scaled globally It will bridge the gap to major extent for public health workers to create awareness and be accessible especially in those areas that are remote to traditional land routes

4) Create children friendly apps to inculcate interest through cartoon and educate them on consequences of poor practices

5)Create a database to connect local hospitals, registered health centers, pharmacies and the victims of the diseases for in time treatment to prevent the spread of the disease

1)Rural Regions  especially active farmers and field workers, these individuals can lessen the spread of vector borne diseases through educating them for taking precautions while working in the field

2)Urban Slums : having improper housing conditions, poor sanitation and waste disposal management. Educating them to adapt their lifestyle in healthy manner will prevent theses communities to contact the diseases

3) Low and middle income people that have limited access to proper health facilities . In many cases due to lack of awareness symptoms are neglected and victims of these disease refuse to consult doctors or seek medical help unless the conditions become extremely severe. in such cases it becomes extremely difficult for doctors to treat patients . creating Awareness by teaching them the sign and symptoms and seeking medical help in early stages prevents the spread and the can get proper treatment

4)Women. especially mothers cater to the family needs . In cases where family members are affected to disease women should to safely cater and look after there own health along with the patient

My Solution is to create a user friendly smartphone application that could have animated video cartoons on awareness of vector borne sickness. The application will be developed in local languages mainly Pushto and Urdu to cater the general population in Khyber Pakhtun Khwa region where illnesses  that are vector borne is chief health issue . In this aspect the Heal The City  educates on precautionary and preventive measures to avoid spread of vector borne diseases . 

The videos will represent and teach about the signs and symptoms in layman terms for easier understanding . The Application will allow information on diagnostic laboratory that are used for detecting those cases and the registered health centre that provide treatments to those conditions

This is a new technology at least according to my region . No such Application exists in Pakistan That addresses the general masses in their local languages to educate them on their health and to prevent deadly and severe sickness caused by vectors like mosquito and sandfly

No application has been develped in Pakistan that prepares and teaches the population of signs and symptoms , connects and guides through areas for early detection and treatment at registered healthcare areas and dealimg with patients that are affected especially at home

My Solution will use an easy user friendly smart phone based application with video animation . The Animation will explain about vector borne diseases in local languages. the causes and prevention that could reduce the outcome of disease . It will explain how to care for a patient at home with such diseases as well the measures the attendant should take for their own health. 

My solution Targets many communities in both urban and rural regions on awareness to promote a safer and healthier lifestyle and prevent sickness of vector borne insects. it promotes to educate young children on clean practices

According to statista.com 51% of users in Pakistan have access to smart phone due to due models introduced by Chinese market. My Idea is to use smart phone application in local language to provide information in layman terms to the population. The Application can be used as database for epidemiologists and doctors to store collect information and focus on those areas where there have been outbreaks of vector borne disease

The Application can be launched in other middle and low income countries where illnesses that arise to insects as vectors are a major health problem

This is a new concept which will aim to target 5000 people initially in the city of Peshawar Pakistan

 By Next year I would work to form a proper technology team with experts from the health and technology sector  And escalate the project in The Province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and eventually in the rest of cities across Pakistan Targetting a minimum 100,000 

1)I Plan to gain guidance if selected from the MIT Solve platform to connect to experts for creating these application. I would like to involve experts from the tech and AI field and from the healthcare sector

2) I would like to train and involve university students so that they can connect to their areas after being trained . 

3) I plan to use donations and grants as seed money to launch the application

1)I Plan to gain guidance if selected from the MIT Solve platform to connect to experts for creating these application. I would like to involve experts from the tech and AI field and from the healthcare sector

2) I would like to train and involve university students so that they can connect to their areas after being trained . 

3) I plan to use donations and grants as seed money to launch the application

one member only , 

I would like to expand and form a team in the upcoming months

Muneeba Wali is a young energetic postgraduate microbiology scholar who has been studying vector borne diseases chiefly dengue, leishmaniasis and malaria as a part of her coursework. During the course of studies, she had observed that there were 1000 outbreaks of dengue cases in early months of 2017 and 2018 in her native city of Peshawar, Pakistan. The cases were reported from slums regions with poor sanitation  and waste disposal conditions leading to higher mosquitoes population and sudden outbreaks of dengue . Recent outbreaks of Leishmaniasis  made her to create a solution

Her understanding as Microbiology student gave her an insight on understanding of vector borne diseases and how it could be avoided or reduced on simple following of clean practices and symptoms for the diseases. Her interaction with families revealed they lacked the information and did not understand the disease.

According to statista.com 51% of the users in Pakistan have access to a smart Phone. Muneeba strongly believes that this smart phone technology coupled can be used to teach the general population using the natural language and video animations through an application on the preventative measures to avoid the disease. The Application can also be used to create a database to connect hospitals, medical centers, laboratories, public health workers and victims of these diseases to eradicate such deadly diseases

In-app advertising 

marketing through social networks

my plan is to use The donations and grants that will help scale the application to country level at end of 18 months . and use investments from pharma companies and government organization that will help me form a team and work with other experts from Pakistan and on global level

I intend to apply to solve because I will have opportunity to meet my other solver peers, experts that would have a similar or common mission to work  and give me pragmatic advice and guidance to develop the application. I would want to meet mentors and experts in the MIT network, companies in the health sectors to  promote and pitch my solution on a global scale through media exposure and entrepreneurship training 

I want to fund my concept , train and gain technical expertise for achieving my goal 

My work would also promote my country Pakistan on the solve platform representing  the and will help me in awareness my native city and surrounding cities which is severly affected by vector borne disease outbreaks in a very short span of time

If my solution is selected for AI Innovations Prize, I would use the prize money as a seed money to expand my project on global and mobile cellular scale 

In the near future I would like to use AI technology for precise detection of Vector borne illness in the diagnostic field. This prize money will help to test and trial my idea before I can implement it .

If my solution is acknowledged in the Solve platform I would like to use the Award prize to expand and form a team to work with experts across Pakistan. 

I would to gain mentor ship from experts in the health sector . The Prize money will contribute towards my team expenses in these training . 

Using this prize money my team will scale the concept to a global level as it is very necessary to look at these diseases and help to eradicate them