Saytu Tension—a suite of digital solutions that will help accelerate early detection, linkage to care, and follow-up among hypertensive patients in Senegal—launched on January 27 in Dakar.

As part of the CARDIO4Dakar project, funded by the Novartis Foundation and implemented by IntraHealth International in partnership with the Senegalese Ministry of Health and Social Action, Saytu Tension (“check your blood pressure” in Wolof) will amplify existing efforts to reach more people with information about cardiovascular risk factors, such as hypertension, and help link clients to diagnosis and health services.

With funding from the Novartis Foundation’s Health Tech Hub, CARDIO4Dakar issued a call for innovative digital tools that could address challenges along a client’s journey, including helping people know their status (for access to early and efficient care) and reduce the risk of cardiovascular complications. Seventeen ideas were submitted and Senegalese-based startup BAAMTU Technologies, in collaboration with the marketing agency ByFilling, was selected in December 2022 to work with CARDIO4Dakar and partners. BAAMTU is a digital solutions and artificial intelligence provider with experience in the digital health sector. Previously, it helped the Ministry of Health and Social Action in Sénégal respond to COVID-19 and the Hôpital Universtaire de Genève on a hemophilia project. Now, BAAMTU will help develop the necessary tools and implement Saytu Tension by June 2023.

Saytu Tension includes four components:

• A bilingual (French and Wolof) chatbot
• An application for patient follow-up (alerts for taking medication, appointment reminders, analysis records)
• A web application for client data
• A website to raise public awareness of hypertension.

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Globally, noncommunicable diseases like hypertension cause 74% of deaths. In Senegal, 45% of deaths are related to noncommunicable diseases and 17% of those deaths are attributable to cardiovascular disease. This new digital tool provides a multi-platform and multi-channel solution for the Senegalese population and health workers to better detect and manage hypertension. It will help reduce the incidence of death from high blood pressure by:

• Reaching 150,000 people with awareness and education messages
• Providing 100,000 clients with health services
• Diagnosing 20,000 clients with high blood pressure
• Following up with 12,000 clients who have been diagnosed.

CARDIO4Dakar launched in April 2022, with the objective to reduce the number of acute cardiovascular events in adults in Dakar by 10% by 2024 and promote data-driven approaches, drawn from digital health, to improve the health of urban populations. It is part of the CARDIO4Cities suite of projects, which have been implemented in Dakar, Sao Paulo, and Ho Chi Minh City. The project follows IntraHealth’s Better Hearts Better Cities initiative from 2017-2020.

To learn more about CARDIO4Cities, visit the Novartis Foundation's website here.

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