# AI-Based Health Assistant for Rural Ethiopia
> An AI-powered conversational health assistant designed to improve healthcare access for rural communities in Ethiopia — supporting English, Amharic, Oromo & Tigrinya, with offline PWA support and USSD access for feature phones.
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**Department:** Information Science
**Institution:** University of Gondar
**Course:** AI Course — Academic Year 2026
**Date:** May 2026
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## About the Project
Ethiopia has fewer than **1 physician per 10,000 people** (WHO), and approximately **80% of the population** lives in rural areas with limited access to health facilities. This project addresses that gap by providing:
- Symptom-based health guidance via keyword matching
- Multi-turn conversational symptom interview (5-step)
- Health education content in English, Amharic, Oromo & Tigrinya
- Nearest health facility finder
- Appointment scheduling
- Emergency first aid guidance
- Offline functionality (PWA service worker)
- USSD support for feature phones (Africa's Talking)
- Growth monitoring for children (WHO standards)
- Vaccination tracking (Ethiopia EPI schedule)
- Pregnancy follow-up & ANC visit tracking
- HEW (Health Extension Worker) checklists
- SMS reminders and alerts
- Outbreak detection (threshold-based)
- DHIS2 integration (simulated)
- Mental health screening
- Nutrition counseling (IYCF, micronutrients, therapeutic feeding)
- Chronic disease management (BP, glucose tracking)
- Supply chain / stock shortage reporting
- Traditional medicine lookup & interaction checking
- Translation (pre-built cache + Google Translate API)
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## System Architecture
```
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Presentation Tier │
│ React SPA (PWA) │
│ USSD / IVR (Africa's Talking) │
│ SMS Chat / Voice (Web Speech API) │
└──────────────────────┬───────────────────────────┘
│
┌──────────────────────▼──────────────── …