Arthur Zang’s Cardiopad Helps Heart Patients Access Medical Assistance

By Megan Reed | Published on: July 17, 2014 Comments (2)

YAOUNDE, Cameroon — Cameroon is experimenting with Africa’s first system to transmit a cardiac signal over a mobile network, allowing heart patients in remote areas vital medical assistance. The Cardiopad is the brainchild of Cameroon engineer Arthur Zang, who was just 24 years old when he invented it two years ago.

Medical staff at the Bafia hospital are using a touch-screen medical tablet that enables heart examinations, such as the electrocardiogram, to be performed at remote, rural locations while the results of the tests are transferred wirelessly to specialists who can interpret them.

A 55-year-old patient, Simplice Momo, said the Cardiopad saves him time and money, accessing treatment in the capital, where the nearest heart specialist is found.

“It has been about a year now that they said I had a cardiovascular disease. I have been traveling to the city to take treatment. But since they brought this machine [device], they just put the machine on me and I no longer travel to the city. It was expensive for me,” said Momo.

Cameroon has a population of about 22 million people, with only 40 heart surgeons concentrated in its largest city, Douala or capital, Yaounde. Sometimes the expertise needed can only be found outside the country.

Saint Elizabeth Cardiac Center nurse, Apolonia Budzee, told VOA that the device will enable them to transmit medical information from the center’s more than 300 patients to specialists who are based in Europe.

“We do not have a resident surgeon. So we have various teams coming from Italy, from France, Sweden, Germany and other places. So we are not working on a daily basis. We collect the patients and then program and call the people up to come and operate,” said Budzee.

Still independent.

We hope this story was worth your time. For over 14 years, Atlanta Black Star has stayed Black-owned and independently run. We didn't get here by waiting on ad budgets that were never built to prioritize us. Our readers did that.

Corporate support for Black media has always been thin. Outlets like ours get roughly 1% of the $170 billion spent on U.S. advertising each year, and that margin is shrinking further as advertisers walk back the DEI-linked commitments they made in 2020. That's the backdrop. It's not why we're asking.

The wider picture isn't any steadier. Newspaper ad revenue has fallen more than 80% since 2005, and local newsrooms are closing at a rate of roughly two a week nationwide. When outlets go under, it's rarely the ones built to center a Black perspective from the ground up that get to stick around.

We know a request for support isn't why you came here. But without readers choosing to fund this work directly, the depth of reporting we can do at home and abroad shrinks along with everyone else's. If you're not in a position to give, that doesn't change how much we value you as a reader.

If you are able to, a recurring contribution does more for us than a single one-time gift, because it lets us plan the next investigation instead of just the next invoice. It takes about 30 seconds, no long form, no account. Thank you for continuing to support independent journalism and freedom of the press.

Give once Give monthly Support another way

Still independent.

Related Stories

‘Not Acceptable’: Namibia Rejects Germany’s $11.7M Offer to Atone for Colonial-Era Genocide of Tens of Thousands of African People

‘Saving Our Own Souls’: ABS CEO, Ugandan Activist Plea for an African Nation to Welcome Black People Being Airlifted Out of China

Outrage Ensues After French Doctors Suggest Deploying Experimental Coronavirus Treatment to Africa: ‘They See Africans as Lab Rats’