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In June this year, experts from around the world gathered in Cape Town, South Africa, for the first Mobile Health Summit. Misha Kay, the manager of the WHO’s Global Observatory for eHealth said “Millions of people in Africa still do not have access to any healthcare. With mobile technology they can at least have some.” The struggle for basic healthcare standards in African countries is a long one, fraught with problems of access, funding, conflict, and more. According to Molecular Microbiology professor Iruka Okeke, one of the greatest problems in healthcare across African countries is the lack of diagnosis. While infectious diseases are the most common cause of illness and death in the continent, doctors generally prescribe medications without laboratory diagnosis of the infections. This has led to larger and more devastating outbreaks of diseases. In her new book, Divining Without Seeds: The Case for Strengthening Laboratory Medicine in Africa, Professor Okeke urges a serious reevaluation of the approach to health care. She is trained in pharmacy and microbiology at Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria and at the University of Maryland. She is currently at Haverford College in Pennsylvania. Okeke herself was treated with the wrong drugs when she fell violently ill as a student in Nigeria.

GUEST: Iruka Okeke, Professor of Molecular Microbiology at Haverford College, author of Divining Without Seeds: The Case for Strengthening Laboratory Medicine in Africa