A Light-weight Solution for Real-Time Dengue Detection using Mobile Phones

Dengue is a disease transmitted mostly from mosquito bites. Viral outbreaks have spread vastly across the world, however mostly found in warm climate areas. Innovative solutions have been developed to combat outbreaks. In developing countries, dengue detection kits are not affordable or always accessible. Thus traditional approaches are still used that are slow to diagnose and treat in time. We present a dengue detection solution that uses vision sensors in cellular phones, a lightweight object identification algorithm, and a novel paper based patch currently being manufactured by researchers at the Harvard School of Medicine and the Dengue Relief Foundation. Our dengue detection algorithm rapidly and economically diagnose dengue and leverage the power of mobile phones to transmit results to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) for further analysis. This novel approach is cost effective and can improve the quality of life in developing countries by accurately detecting dengue and providing data to the CDC for monitoring of dengue epidemics.