Hyderabad: More than 10 lakh people in India suffer from Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) every day. Worse still, more than 90 per cent of them are prescribed antibiotics even before testing if these would work. This empirical treatment is causing microbes to become resistant to antibiotics.
After five years of R&D, BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad has found a solution to the problem that is often defined as a “ticking time bomb” and “a threat worse than terrorism”. Last week, it unveiled a low-cost, ultra-rapid portable device, which can test antibiotic sensitivity of human urinary pathogens.
Inventor of the technology and senior professor at the department of biological sciences at the institute, Dr Suman Kapur, says, “Once bacteria become resistant to an antibiotic, that antibiotic becomes useless. And in the absence of effective antibiotics, even small surgical procedures can become life- threatening. But if a doctor has the results on antibiotic sensitivity, he or she can prescribe the right antibiotics.”
Time is of essence for both doctors and patients. And that is where this antibiotic finder has the edge. She adds, “The current technologies require 24 to 72 hours, air-conditioned labs, cold chain reagents and trained manpower to conduct the tests. But with this new technique, it can be done in a village PHC, doctor’s clinic, ICU ward or hospital lab, even at home on any table top at room temperature. It gives the results in just three hours and can be done for Rs 300 or less.
“While it is optimised to perform tests only on urine samples, we hope it can be expanded to samples of blood, serum and other body fluids as well as tissue types,” says student Anuradha Pal, who has worked closely with Dr Suman on the project.
Hindustan Unilever’s Kan Khajura Tesan (KKT) campaign lifted four trophies at the Cannes Lions last month. And it was Hyderabad-based Ozonetel Systems that powered KKT’s stupendous success.KKT is an on-demand, entertainment channel for mobile users residing in remote corners of India. All they have to do is leave a missed call on 180030000123, and listen to Hindi songs, jokes, RJ-talk and sher-o-shayari and get entertained for “free”. Absolutely!
In the last three months, ever since Ozonetel offered its cloud telephony platform for KKT, it has had over 12 million users, mainly from the “media dark” regions of Bihar, Jharkhand and UP.
C.S.N. Murthy, founder of Ozonetel, says the target is to take this mobile radio to 100 million users by September and expand it to South India later.
Murthy, who is a serial entrepreneur with 25-plus years of experience in telecom and networking industries, shares his plan: “We plan to give incentives and rewards to acquire new customers. If a user refers our service to five-six other people in his or her village, we can give a free top-up recharge.”
“We are now enhancing the platform with video, speech recognition capabilities to improve the consumer experience,” he adds.
KKT is also teaching English words to villagers on demand and even giving news on employment. Murthy says, “Potentially other services like healthcare, education, community radios and other content useful to farmers can also be delivered through cloud telephony.”
But will this mobile radio not take a beating if licences for FM radios are approved? Murthy isn’t worried: “At the most they will be approved for 10 city circles, not more. We are reaching out to so many Indians in villages. Also, it’s a one-to-one entertainment medium, so it’s more personalised.”
