A young entrepreneur has stepped forward to curb the scourge of diabetes in South Africa through innovative technology. 

Lubabalo Mnyaka founded Aflu Med Healthcare in 2014 to develop different programmes to prevent and manage the disease.

Mnyaka, who holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Medical Microbiology from the University of Free State, says he took a liking to diabetes while working as a cardiometabolic care representative for Merck Serono, a German multinational pharmaceutical company in Johannesburg.

He says he discovered that South Africa was struggling to manage 3.5 million South Africans who lived with the silent killer disease.

He says he found that 95 percent live with Type 2 as a result of their lifestyles while the rest battled Type 1 which is an autoimmune disease.

“In 2010 the prevalence of type 2 diabetes was estimated at 4.5 percent. We are now looking at 155 percent increase in such a short space of time,” he says.

Mnyaka says between 60 percent and 80 percent of people with diabetes in the country die before the age of 60.

Mnyaka says he has developed a diabetes management software for government clinics to reduce the cost to the fiscus.

The software allows heads of departments and treating doctors and nurses to enforce accountability, prevent and/or delay the onset of diabetes complications.

Mnyaka says the diabetes management software is fully customisable and is capable of storing and sharing key information at a point of care such as full blood count, routine examination, ophthalmology, podiatry, stock management, and kidney function test, among others.

Besides running his businesses, Mnyaka, who was chosen to represent South Africa in the 2015 UK-South Africa Bilateral Forum in London, says he is busy setting up the Eljays Institute of Science, a private school focussed on producing scientists in the healthcare and engineering sectors.

“We want to expose pupils, especially those from rural areas, to maths and science so that they become future scientists. We want to groom them from a young age up to Grade 12.”

The college, he says, is bent on removing the myth that mathematics and science are difficult subjects.