Feature
Arthur Zang for some time now has become a household name within and without Cameroon. Reason is that the 28-year-old Cameroonian University IT Specialist is now using his technological know-how to pioneer cardiac health care in the country.
In fact, he invented the Cardio-Pad, which analysts say, is Africa’s first handheld medical computer tablet. The device allows health care workers in the rural milieu to send the results of cardiac tests to specialists through a mobile phone connection and in so doing increasing the availability of cardiac health care for Cameroonians living in remote areas.
The invention has brought fame to the young Cameroonian and his stardom no doubt cuts across Africa and the World. It couldn’t have been otherwise given disturbing trends of cardiac problems in the country which increasingly disable some victims and send others to the world beyond.
An online publication on Rolex Awards for Enterprises, quotes Cameroon’s Society of Cardiologists as saying that “some 30 per cent of Cameroon’s 22 million people suffer from high blood pressure, which is one of the key contributing factors to heart disease.
Yet, there are fewer than 50 heart specialists, most of whom are based in Douala and Yaounde, leaving the rural areas with virtually no cardiac care.” Reason why the Arthur Zang cardiac telemedicine contained in the Cardio-Pad is hope-raising for many in the country who might sooner or later be affected or infected with growing heart-related problems.
No wonder why the youngster has been attracting recognition in and out of the country. Since coming up with the invention some years back, there has been near unanimity from almost all circles of national life that the Cardio-Pad offers solutions to heart problems in the country.
A week ago, the Head of State, through the Minister of Scientific Research and Innovation, gave a FCFA 20 million excellence award to the inventor. This was high-level recognition for an outstanding work of science. The inventor deserved that and more after all.
While hoping for the mobile telephone network to get to all the nooks and crannies of the country for all and sundry to tap maximum benefits from the brainwork of the young Cameroonian, it goes without saying that the inventor remains ‘an endangered specie’ who must be jealously protected for posterity. Normally, he should already have secured a copyright for his invention which gives him exclusive right in the domain.
This would even be good news and reason enough to accompany him develop the invention in a larger-scale so as to serve a wider public. Setting up a Cardio-Pad Development Centre, for instance, in the country would be an opportunity to expand the invention and possibly transfer technology to other youths like him for durability and sustainability.
Brain drain has often been decried in the country. Obviously, so as it is counter-productive especially to the country that losses the fine brain. But once a country fails to recognise and give maximum value to her human resource, others elsewhere do and will even stretch beyond limits to offer attractive opportunities to the inventor. The end results are that the home country that even subsidises the training of the inventor perishes in under development as her researchers develop other societies elsewhere with their fine inventions and innovations.
Arthur Zang is on the limelight today. Others like him do exist and some have even come and gone, either exporting their know-how elsewhere to the detriment of their home country or even sometimes dying with their ingenuity. Others are and will be coming.
There is therefore an urgent need to better detect, groom and harness the country’s fine human resources for development to follow. If the emergence vision is not fantasy, then a strong base must be on fine research works. That is what has developed other economies and Cameroon cannot afford to be an exception.
