A cellphone-based microscope for treating river blindness

A smartphone-based microscope technology developed at UC Berkeley has been used to help treat river blindness, a debilitating disease caused by parasitic worms. The technology, called LoaScope, uses video from a smartphone-connected microscope to automatically detect and quantify infection by parasitic worms in a drop of blood.

River blindness is a disease caused by a parasitic worm found primarily in Africa. The worm (Onchocerca volvulus) is transmitted to humans through bites of infected black flies. Left untreated, infections in the eye can lead to blindness. Complicating matters, the medication to treat the infection, ivermectin, can be fatal when a patient also has high blood levels of another parasitic worm, called Loa loa.

http://news.berkeley.edu/story_jump/a-cellphone-based-microscope-for-treating-river-blindness/