A groundbreaking five-year examine into whether or not crypto token incentives can enhance well being outcomes for sufferers with HIV/AIDS can be launched in Kenya by the top of the yr.
On Nov 1, the blockchain-powered healthcare ecosystem Immunify.Life and the Masinde Muliro College of Science and Know-how (MMUST) introduced that they had secured the approval wanted from an ethics committee and the nationwide fee to launch the examine.
Collectively they may conduct a five-year examine on HIV/AIDS beginning earlier than the top of 2021 within the Kakamega County area of Kenya, earlier than extending all through the remainder of the nation.
The primary main undertaking of this collaboration is a groundbreaking examine in #HIV/#AIDS to research the effectiveness of incentives and paperless monitoring programs on HIV remedy adherence and remedy outcomes in low socio-economic settings in Kenya.
— Immunify.Life (@ImmunifyLife) December 1, 2021
MMUST will use Immunify.Life’s blockchain know-how to gather and analyze affected person knowledge to assist enhance the outcomes of HIV therapies. It’s going to consider whether or not sufferers have higher remedy outcomes if they’re incentivized with token rewards for health-positive behaviors recognized by undertaking sponsors like NGOs and authorities establishments.
Immunify.Life CEO Man Newing instructed Cointelegraph:
“This system we’re testing will provide token incentives to encourage lapsed sufferers to current on the clinic for his or her remedy.”
Sufferers and medical doctors can be rewarded with Immunify.Life’s native ERC-20 IMM token. He added these may very well be provided for “finishing a prescribed course of antibiotics for Tuberculosis,” and to incentivize, “HIV affected person returning recurrently to the clinic for his or her check-up and remedy.”
Newing mentioned that well being care staff may also be rewarded for optimistic behaviors corresponding to “accurately filling out session information, ordering a sure variety of checks for Tuberculosis, or finishing medical training.”
Each affected person who makes use of the platform is issued a nonfungible token (NFT) well being ID that captures key medical knowledge, like vaccination information. This knowledge is then transferred to a digital registry to allow distant medical supervision and real-time knowledge entry for medical professionals.
The examine’s pattern measurement is 600 sufferers. Half will obtain the token incentivization, and the opposite half will act as controls and won’t obtain token rewards. The sufferers can be monitored over six months and can obtain energetic remedy and monitoring on a month-to-month foundation.
The examine may also monitor the efficacy of utilizing paperless healthcare monitoring programs in a low socio-economic space.
Newing mentioned that, “Important Medical knowledge remedy knowledge might be captured in actual time, time stamped and secured; it may well’t be hacked or modified.” The platform will initially use a second-layer resolution on Ethereum utilizing Polygon, with long-term plans to bridge to Cardano.
Apart from the token rewards supplied by sponsors, sufferers may also financially profit from the sale of anonymized medical knowledge. Immunify.Life is at present conducting a non-public spherical for Strategic and Institutional traders earlier than its preliminary DEX providing (IDO) which is deliberate for early 2022.
“Sufferers can be empowered to take management of their knowledge and share within the monetary rewards. The system is funded by charges charged to organizations who fund and ship the healthcare.”
Along with work in HIV in Kenya, Immunify.Life is making use of its blockchain know-how in two different therapeutic areas, COVID-19 & Opioid dependancy.
Associated: How Blockchain Will Revolutionize Healthcare
Kenya is dwelling to round 1.5 million folks with HIV in keeping with the 2020 UNAIDS report. Whereas 70% of those sufferers bear remedy, there are current difficulties round monitoring, entry, program design, and knowledge assortment.
Many individuals identified with HIV are unable to proceed with remedy. In some areas, the variety of ‘lapsed’ sufferers can attain as much as 40%, in keeping with Immunify.Life. This consists of pregnant ladies, who can go on the virus to their baby throughout delivery.
