As a continuation of Part 1, Out of the 40 shortlisted medical technologies received by ICMR as part of the "Innovations in Medical Science and Biotechnology” fest this year, here are some of the novel technologies that have the potential of providing better disease management.

[You can read Part1 here]

1. Hand Cranked Defibrillator – The Life Saver

For regions where there is no continuous power supply or lack of appropriate batteries for a defibrillator, a new innovation has made it possible to save lives. When a person suffers life-threatening cardiac dysrhythmias, a dose of counter-shock to the heart helps in ending the dysrhythmia and sets the heart back to normal sinus rhythm. A hand cranked defibrillator is an affordable and efficient machine which can deliver a shock with 8-12 seconds of cranking.

Unlike the other defibrillators which use expensive non-reusable batteries or rely on external source of power, this novel device uses paddles as a source for the generation of power required to use the machine. The robustness and affordability of the machine can be attributed to the usage of consumer electronics. It also has a feature of synchronized cardio version which aids for the treatment of tachycardia along with some forms of atrial fibrillation.

2. Delay the Cord Clamping For A Better Beginning

Leaving the umbilical cord intact for a few minutes post parturition for the blood to flow completely into the neonate is known as delayed cord clamping. Delayed clamping helps the babies to have 40% more blood volume, 50% higher ferritin levels and a 45% increased hematocrit. The neonatal resuscitation trolley with delayed clamping has an accurately controlled thermal environment, bed for baby with side panel, resuscitation unit with hand operated port, suction unit, safety alarms, examination lamp, IV stand and control panel. Neonates with delayed clamping require less oxygen and ventilation therapies.

3. Suchek – A User-friendly Glucometer

With the changing lifestyle, diabetes is becoming more and more prevalent. Cost per test for detecting diabetes has become a barrier and many people neglect checking their sugar levels. An innovation addressing this issue is Suchek-glucometer and its strips. It uses the colorimetric technique for the color change detection of the test strip.

The strip is soaked for 30 seconds in the test blood, wiped and then placed under the reader. Depending on the extent of color change, the reader gives an estimate of the blood glucose concentration. This device has additional features like mobile connectivity and 500 tests memory. Mobile connectivity helps in connecting the Suchek to a smartphone and this data can be shared to get health tips and medical advice. The device is portable and light-weighted, which makes it easy to carry.

4. Laterite for Arsenic Free Drinking Water

Many states of India use ground water directly for drinking without any purification. In many states, arsenic contamination in ground water is a major problem. To counteract this problem, a laterite-based filter for arsenic removal has been designed which uses the naturally and abundantly available laterite as the adsorbant filter. The filter bed is made of different naturally available materials in a successive layer. They include activated charcoal, raw laterite, active laterite, fine sand, and activated carbon.

Unlike the other adsorbants used, the laterite filter has a five year lifespan and does not require any regeneration during this period. Filters using laterite as adsorbant have the capacity to adsorb arsenic which is three times higher than the usual adsorbants used. After the lifespan of the filter, the waste can be used for building bricks or laying roads. The added advantage is the low maintenance cost and no backwashing of the filter.

5. Truenat – A quick test to detect TB

Tuberculosis is the second largest killer worldwide. In most of the cases, the treatment procedure is delayed due to amount of time taken for the screening tests. Culturing bacteria from the sputum sample is considered gold standard method but, it takes 3-5 weeks to obtain the result. It also requires a controlled laboratory with specialized facilities and skilled manpower.

Truenat ® MTB is an easy diagnostic test for detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It is a chip based real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in which the reagents are pre-coated on the detection chip. These reagents are stabilized and do not get degraded at the room temperature. The analyzer compares the values and provides a quantitative result. Truenat ® MTB kit can be used even in laboratories with minimal infrastructure. This kit requires only 6µl of purified DNA for the reaction. This chip also stores information to minimize the risk of re-use.

References

• IEEE 2016 Global Humanitarian Technology Conference; A Hand Cranked, Affordable Defibrillator for Resource-poor settings. Sreeram Dhurjaty and Aniruddha Atre ;Dhurjaty Electronics Consulting LLC
•   Sourav Mondal, Anirban Roy et al., A socio-economic study along with impact assessment for laterite based technology demonstration for arsenic mitigation Sci Total Environ (2017)
•  Chaitali Nikam, Manjula Jagannath et al., Rapid Diagnosis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis with Truenat MTB: A Near-Care Approach; PLos One.2013; 8(1): e51121; Jan 21 2013
•  ICMR report. Available from: http://www.icmr.nic.in/final/ICMR%20Innovation%20Technologies%202017%20final%20pdf.pdf