A group of researchers working on identifying new biomarkers to diagnose pneumonia—Malawi’s leading infectious killer among children under the age of five—is close to a breakthrough after approximately eight years of experimentation.
The project, known as Biotope, focuses on identifying the various forms of pneumonia to ensure that appropriate treatment is administered.
Currently, pneumonia diagnosis relies on measuring the breathing rate and assessing physical symptoms, which often leads to confusion with other illnesses and makes accurate diagnosis difficult.
One of the researchers, Associate Professor Balwani Mbakaya from the Department of Biological Sciences at Mzuzu University (Mzuni), said that misdiagnosis can lead to inappropriate treatment, increasing the patient’s antibiotic resistance and delaying correct referrals.
“Now, for the majority of children who suffer from pneumonia, the cause is viral in nature and not bacterial; yet, the treatment is administered as if it were bacterial, which involves antibiotics.
“This creates a problem regarding resistance. The World Health Organisation is already stating that antimicrobial resistance is becoming another pandemic worldwide,” he said.
Speaking in Mzuzu after briefing clinical research assistants and nursing officers from district hospitals on the study’s progress, Mbakaya mentioned that they are also developing smartphone technology that employs machine learning models to assess the severity of pneumonia cases.
One of the clinical research assistants, Telecia Mkwana from Reverend John Chilembwe Hospital, said that Malawi is still experiencing a significant number of deaths caused by pneumonia.
“Since the aim of this research project is to determine the exact cause of pneumonia in children the end result will enable us to distinguish the cause, and therefore know the appropriate treatment for patients. Without understanding the disease, the correct medication cannot be administered,” she said.
Pneumonia, an infection that inflames the air sacs in the lungs, is considered a preventable illness by the United Nations and is responsible for nearly one million deaths of children under five each year.
More than 99 percent of these deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, including Malawi.
The study, which started at Mzuzu Health Centre in 2016, is being conducted by researchers from University College Dublin, Mzuni, Queen’s University Belfast, University of Galway and Malawi’s Ministry of Health
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