Daily Trust's Assistant Online Editor, Afeez Hanafi, has emerged as the winner of the print category in the 2nd edition of Emerging Health Technologies Media Award of Excellence.
The paper's Health Editor, Ojoma Akor, had won the category in the inaugural edition of the award last year.
The award was organised by the African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP) through the Platform for Dialogue and Action on Health Technologies in Africa (Health Tech Platform) in collaboration with the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD).
Hanafi's winning entry, "Outages: Non-electric ventilator offers relief in respiratory failure treatment," focuses on a medical oxygen-conserving device known as ShiVent invented by a Nigerian biomedical engineer based in the United Kingdom, Dr Yusuf Bilesanmi, and his colleagues.
The story dwells on the potential of the device to help patients battling respiratory failure, especially in health facilities in hard-to-reach communities where power supply is very poor or nonexistent.
Speaking during the award ceremony held virtually on Wednesday, a member of the jury and chairperson Kenyan Environment and Science Journalists Association, Duncan Mboyah, said 119 eligible entries were received across the continent.
"The competition aims at advancing public awareness of emerging technologies that have the potential to improve the health and save millions of lives on the African continent. The AU has prioritised these emerging health technologies, including artificial intelligence, drones, gene editing, and microgrids, due to their potential to positively transform the health and wellbeing of people on the continent.
"The assessment criteria included well-researched stories, how they engage with the latest scientific evidence, including data and convincing arguments, and how the journalists use facts related to the broader context of the technology. We also looked at the originality of the story, how the journalists engaged with the relevant stakeholders or experts in the field and how they engaged with the issue from a fresh and unique perspective," he said.
Joseph Mbeng Boum, Vice President of the World Federation of Science Journalists, commended Hanafi's report for spotlighting such an important tool capable of addressing a major health crisis on the continent.
"The report was well written and has good impacts on communities in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is really a great story about how we are innovating in low-resource settings. It gives hope," Boum added.
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Other winners are Dajie Odok from Nigeria (Radio Category), Derick Matsengarwodzi from Zimbabwe (Online Category), Portia Garbor from Ghana (TV Category) and Leocadia Bougben, a Cameroonian who won the grand prize.
In her opening remarks, Director of Public Policy and Knowledge Translation and Head of AFIDEP Kenyan Office, Dr. Rose Oronje, stated that the award was hosted to strengthen advocacy around the development and uptake of emerging health technologies in Africa in line with AFIDEP's mandate to support government agencies in ensuring sustained use of data and evidence in decision making.
"This award is critical for us because there is quite a lot going on on the continent in terms of exploring new tools and technologies that have potential to improve health outcomes on the continent.
"Africa accounts for the largest disease burden globally, but we are spending very little. That means emerging technologies have a big role to play because if some of them are well developed and integrated in our health system, they could save a lot of costs and lives," she said.
