Muchunku Kawira is the founder and director of Brighten A Soul Foundation, an organization that focuses on SDG 1, 2 and 4 and has reached out to at least 2000 people so far. She actively advocates for women leadership, and this got her to becoming the WOMAN Africa Ambassador in Kenya. She is passionate about STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) and aims at bridging the gender gap in STEM. She is the founder of Dada STEM, a program that got her work recognized by Akili Dada as one of the community leaders in Kenya in 2019. She recently joined The Third Hand Initiative as one of the board of directors. Muchunku Kawira being so passionate robotics, she hopes to create a humanoid robot named Willie.
Project Summary
Project Title: Comparing different classification algorithms to predict the adherence to tuberculosis treatment for new cases in Kenya
Abstract: This study determines factors that are associated to non-adherence to tuberculosis treatment in Kenya. In the African Region, over 25% of the tuberculosis deaths occur. Kenya is among the 30 high burden countries accounting for more than 80% of tuberculosis cases in the world. In Kenya, TB is the number five killer. Due to the high cases of TB, WHO established a global plan called End TB Strategy that was aimed at reducing the tuberculosis deaths by 95%. Adherence to TB treatment is a key element to ensuring a successful control TB program, however, not every patient adheres to TB treatment. Non adherence to TB treatment results in the increase in number of deaths, drug resistance by patients, length of illness and disease transmission, which have economic consequences for patients and their families due to loss of income and cost of the health system. A system that tells if a patient will adhere to the tuberculosis treatment or not can help to curb the non-adherence rates.