Mobile applications for cervical cancer unveiled

Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, Minister of Environment Science, Technology and Innovation has unveiled three mobile applications software on cervical cancer prevention and management to aid healthcare delivery in the country.

They are: the Cervical Cancer Prevention Training Centre (CCPTC) Mobile Colposcopy app, CCPTC Cervical Ablative Treatment app, and CCPTC Colposcopy Report Sheet app.

Prof Frimpong-Boateng speaking at the launch at the Battor Catholic Hospital in the North Tongu District of the Volta Region, on Wednesday noted that the application would equip healthcare professionals with the necessary technology to comprehensively detect, analyze and treat cervical cancer.

The Minister stated that the world thrived and was been driven by innovation, knowledge and science, hence the need to embrace technological advancement.

While praising the team from Bottor CCPTC for developing the applications, he urged the youth, especially health workers, to strive hard to unearth their talents and help provide solutions to the many challenges the health sector was facing.

“Just like the innovators who had come up with this application, each and everyone has a unique gift from God that no one has. To explain this, look at how officers who found themselves in an area ranked as a poor district, have been able to develop this to serve the world,” he said.

A team from CCPTC led by Dr Kofi Effah and Dr David Olayiwola Olatayo jointly developed the innovative app that could be currently found on Google play store.

Dr Olatayo explained that the CCPTC Mobile Colposcopy app was designed for professionals who used mobile colposcope for screening through enhanced visual inspections with acetic acid.

He said the application through the use of artificial intelligent was able to indicate whether a patient was qualified for screening with mobile colpscope and further assessed for visibility of squamo columnar junction.

The second application CCPTC Cervical Ablative Treatment app, he stated had been devised for health professionals to aid the prescription of management and avoid errors.

Dr Olatayo remarked that the third application, which was based on, the 2011 International Federation of Cervical Pathology and Colposcopy nomenclature, took records in a telemedicine and capture images of the cervix that was saved in a database.

“This app makes it possible for trainers to supervise their trainers in any part of the world. It has a self-reliant version in which the health professional can independently record, analyse and manage their colposcopic findings,” he said.

Dr Kofi Effah, Director of CCPTC explained that the centre had over the years embarked on many innovation including community-based cervical cancer screening programme through the Community-based Health Planning Services (CHIPS), with self-sampling and decentralized test which some 2000 women benefited.

Through the support of donors, he disclosed that the Centre was the only facility in the country that had modern equipment to test for the high-risk or carcinogenic types that were most likely to cause cervical cancer by looking for pieces of their DNA in cervical cells at a subsidized cost of GHC 75.

He added that the acquisition of thermal coagulator through crowdfunding and other philanthropic assistance had helped to treat cervical pre-cancer in remote communities.

The Centre, had so far trained 34 health workers throughout the country to be able to detect, analyse and manage cervical cancer.

Dr Gloria Quansah-Asare, Deputy Director General of Ghana Health Service (GHS), said the various interventions were in line with the GHS plans to improve the health service of the country.

She praised the Hospital for attaining such a feat, adding that, cervical cancer had been captured and categorized as one of the serious health issues in the country.

Dr Quansah-Asare said there had been recommendations that the levels of care needed to be done not only at the tertiary stage, but at the community level.

“At the level we are moving through, supporting CHIPS to provide universal care and expanding service, the country would be able to achieve it healthcare global targets.”

She said the Ghana Health service would soon sponsor some nurses to be trained in the detection, analyse and management of cervical cancer.