Robots will soon help fight coronavirus in Kenya

Mission Excellence Global Service Limited, a Kenyan firm, has partnered with India’s Invento to develop Robodoc, an autonomously manned robot. The firm, which also has a presence in India, Tunisia, France and Morocco, will sell Robodoc, among other Invento Robotics products, in the African region.

Robodoc is capable of scanning temperature and pulse levels, asking preprogrammed questions, and using facial recognition so that once information is captured, it gets aggregated into and remains in the hospital management system for future reference.

The robot can also connect virtually to a doctor for patient consultation and also can print prescriptions.

Robodoc will help in keeping front line doctors and nurses safe as they deal with Covid-19.

This is as doctors will have minimised contact with patients.

Mission Excellence Global Service Limited, which now becomes the first company in the region to venture into robotics, aims to ease human efforts with innovative and smart products and services which are cheap and thus cost effective. They also aim to offer high quality standards in health services.

The startup was co-founded by Mr Pravin Eazhawa and Patrick Warutere. Pravin has been a pioneer of back office and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) operations in Kenya.

“We have conceptualised this robot keeping in mind that we have to keep our frontline saviors safe and avoid exposing them, allowing them to concentrate on their most important activity, that of taking care of the patients who need their care and attention. As we are adapting to the new normal, technology must be in the forefront,” said Pravin.

He said they have successfully deployed the Robot in Fortis and Phoenix hospitals in Bengaluru, India.

“The advantages of the robot include drastically improving productivity of the doctor and the nurse by having the robot do all the mundane work, including walking along the floors, taking vitals, and asking questions. It also improves their safety by minimising their visits to isolation wards.”

Pravin added that they have been receiving positive results with the intervention in Kenya so far. Eventually, their plan is to assemble and manufacture these robots locally.

“Currently, we are testing our disinfecting robot using UV rays solely with the intention of minimising human intervention and quicker turnaround as UV rays kill majority of germs within under 10 minutes,” Pravin added.

Pravin said the robot cost 70 per cent less than those recently deployed in neighbouring countries.

Rwanda recently deployed three robots, which were donated by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and are helping frontline workers tackle the coronavirus crisis.

“As a company we are here to provide quality products ensuring value for money for all our clients,” said Pravin.