A groundbreaking five-year study will be launched in Kenya by the end of the year to investigate whether incentives for crypto tokens can improve the health outcomes of patients with HIV / AIDS.
On November 1, the blockchain-powered health ecosystem Immunify.Life and Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology (MMUST) announced that they had received the necessary approval from an ethics committee and the national commission to start the study.
Together they will conduct a five-year study on HIV / AIDS that will begin in the Kakamega County area of Kenya before the end of 2021 and then expand to the rest of the country.
The first major project of this collaboration is a groundbreaking study in #HIV/#AIDS To examine the effectiveness of incentives and paperless tracking systems on HIV treatment adherence and treatment outcomes in socio-economic conditions in Kenya.
– Immunify.Life (@ImmunifyLife) December 1, 2021
MUST be use Immunify.Life’s blockchain technology for collecting and analyzing patient data to improve HIV treatment outcomes. It assesses whether patients achieve better treatment outcomes when they are incentivized with symbolic rewards for health-positive behavior identified by project sponsors such as NGOs and government institutions.
Guy Newing, CEO of Immunify.Life, told Cointelegraph:
“The program we are testing will provide symbolic incentives to encourage relapse patients to come to the clinic for treatment.”
Patients and clinicians will be using the native ERC-20 IMM. rewarded by Immunify.Life sign. He added that these could be offered to “complete a prescribed course of antibiotics for tuberculosis” and to incentivize “HIV patients who regularly return to the clinic for examination and treatment”.
Newing said health care workers are also rewarded for positive behavior, such as “correctly filling out counseling protocols, ordering a certain number of tests for tuberculosis, or completing medical training.”
Every patient who uses the platform receives a non-fungible token (NFT) Health ID, which records important medical data such as vaccination records. This data is then transferred to a digital register to enable remote medical monitoring and real-time data access for healthcare professionals.
The sample size of the study is 600 patients. Half will receive the token incentives, the other half will act as controls and will not receive any token rewards. Patients are monitored for six months and are actively treated and monitored monthly.
The study will also track the effectiveness of using paperless health tracking systems in a socioeconomically depressed area.
source: Immunify.Life
Newing said, “Treatment data for critical medical data can be captured, timestamped, and backed up in real time; it can’t be hacked or changed. ”The platform will initially use a second-layer solution on Ethereum with Polygon, with long-term plans to bridge the gap with Cardano.
In addition to the symbolic rewards of the sponsors, patients also benefit financially from the sale of anonymized medical data. Immunify.Life is currently conducting a private round for strategic and institutional investors ahead of its first DEX offering (WENT), which is planned for early 2022.
“Patients are empowered to take control of their data and share in the financial rewards. The system is funded through fees billed to organizations that fund and provide health care. “
In addition to working on HIV in Kenya, Immunify.Life applies its blockchain technology to two other therapeutic areas, COVID-19 and opioid addiction.
Related: How blockchain will revolutionize healthcare
According to the UNAIDS 2020 report, around 1.5 million people in Kenya live with HIV. Although 70% of these patients are undergoing treatment, there are currently difficulties with tracking, access, programming, and data collection.
Many people diagnosed with HIV cannot continue treatment. According to Immunify.Life, the number of “expired” patients can reach up to 40% in some areas. This includes pregnant women who can pass the virus on to their child during childbirth.
