Online platform seeks to improve disease diagnosis, treatment, reduce death by 10%

STACK Diagnostics, Nigeria’s first molecular diagnostics and personalised medicine company has launched Diagnoseme.africa, an online platform that provides diagnostics and treatment tools for healthcare providers in Africa. According to the company, the diagnostic platform provides over 300 specialist tests across a wide range of conditions such as genetic disorders, infections (viral/bacteria), cancer, sexual transmitted disease (STD), paternity, autoimmune and hormonal disorders, vitamin deficiencies, and allergies among others. Speaking during the unveiling of the Diagnoseme.africa platform in Lagos, the Chief Executive Officer, Stack Diagnostics, said the burden of diseases requiring molecular and genetic testing were on the rise in Nigeria, hence the need for a platform to addressed the problem. Ene-obong lamented that 20 million Nigerians are infected with hepatitis; 22 million women infected with the human papillomavirus (26.3 per cent prevalence), while over 100, 000 infants die from misdiagnosis of sickle cell yearly.

He added that over 100, 000 Nigerian women have breast cancer yearly; of which the survival rate is 10 per cent due to the inability to differentiate breast cancer types using molecular techniques, among other. He lamented that due to the similarity in presentation of viral diseases and the lack of molecular diagnostics, patients are frequently misdiagnosed with malaria, resulting in unnecessary costs to the patient, late detection, and death. He said there is dis-aggregation and hyper-fragmentation among health care providers, diagnostics labs and the tools they use, which he said has resulted in poor referral network, poor navigation of specialist health care providers.