According to the CDC, Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), such as heart disease, cancer, chronic respiratory disease, and diabetes, are the leading cause of death worldwide and represent an emerging global health threat. Deaths from NCDs now exceed all communicable disease deaths combined.
One would however ask, how bad is this situation?
Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) kill 41 million people each year, equivalent to 74% of all deaths globally. Each year, 17 million people die from a Noncommunicable disease before age 70; 86% of these premature deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. Of all NCD deaths, 77% are in low- and middle-income countries as clearly stated by the World Health Organisation
In Rwanda however, one female led healthtech startup is at the forefront of reducing these avoidable deaths by creatively innovating around this problem
What is Lifesten Health ?
Lifesten health is a company that provides incentive-based health and wellness programmes to improve the Rwandan population’s health. With Lifesten health users can engage in daily health challenges and get rewarded for it when they complete the challenges.
Simply put, Lifesten Health rewards you for being healthy. Lifesten focuses on improving people’s lifestyles and preventing non communicable diseases. Essentially with Lifesten Health the goal is to prevent individuals from becoming sick.
But who is behind these multi award winning health start up?
Meet Ogweno Stephen and Peace Iraguha.
Ogweno Stephen who is Lifesten Health’s co-founder and CEO is himself a multi award winning health entrepreneur. Ogweno Stephen has had extensive experience working in the non-communicable diseases space having founded Stowelink Inc , another successful health startup in 2015 , and worked with various local and global organizations.
Ogweno’s work experience including working with organizations such as the World Heart Federation, The World Health Organization, The World Obesity Federation, C3 For Health just to mention a few. He has also published multiple research papers on the topic and even had one of his publications win the World Health Organizations Hideyo Noguchi Prize for Young African Researchers.
Peace Iraguha on the other side has been described as Rwanda’s health innovator of the year. She has had extensive experience as a nutritionist working with major global organizations such as World Vision. As an innovator peace has always been interested in finding ways to improve people’s health and as a result, before co-founding Lifesten, she was engaged with Nutri-Rwanda and as a district hospital nutritionist.
Together these two co-founded the leading health startup in Rwanda which won the national Hanga Pitchfest competitions and the Norvatis Foundation CV Challenge to improve cardiovascular health. Its because of these two significant wins in the month of December that Lifesten Health was able to raise 300,000 USD. Ultimately these funds will be geared towards improving the health and wellness of the residents of Rwanda and ultimately the region.
More on Healthtech in Africa :
The Essential Role of New Tech for Healthcare
How The Beyond2020 Initiative is Improving Access To Healthcare Services To Rural Rwandans.
