Zinhle Mnisi

South African biomedical engineer pioneering low-cost HIV diagnostic tools in rural Africa

Zinhle Mnisi (born 1990) is a South African biomedical engineer whose 2021 invention RapidHIV Kit has revolutionized HIV testing in sub-Saharan Africa. Her portable diagnostic device provides accurate results in 10 minutes using saliva samples, costing just $1.50 per test. Deployed across 12 African countries through the WHO's 2023 Emergency Medical Initiative, the kits identified over 300,000 undiagnosed cases in mobile clinics. Zinhle's 2024 partnership with IBM Research developed AI algorithms to predict HIV drug resistance patterns from test data, improving treatment efficacy by 40%. Her TED Global talk 'Testing for Tomorrow' was viewed 2.3 million times. The World Health Assembly honored her in 2024 as one of three 'Global Health Transformers.' Her nonprofit HIV Innovation Collective has trained 2,500 community health workers in Swaziland and Lesotho, expanding access to point-of-care diagnostics. Zinhle's work is featured in Nature Biomedical Engineering and inspired similar projects in India and Southeast Asia.