Arthur Zang from Cameroon won this year’s Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation for his heart-monitoring device, the Cardio-Pad — which is set to change the way Africans get treatment for heart disease.

The award, which has a cash prize of $37,000, is given out annually by the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK. Mr Zang beat Aijuka Edmand from Uganda, Felix Kimaru from Kenya and Matt Wainwright from South Africa.

Last year, the award was given to Askwar Hilonga of the Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology in Arusha, Tanzania, for coming up with an affordable water purification system. There was no contestant from Tanzania this year.

The Cardio-Pad is a small tablet device that allows a medical professional to perform heart diagnostics at any location. The diagnostics, sent to a cardiologist via a mobile phone network, can be interpreted in under 20 minutes.

A document released by the Royal Academy of Engineering said one in two Africans over the age of 25 has undiagnosed hypertension, and an estimated 20 million suffer from a cardiovascular disease. A further 80 million Africans are estimated to have abnormally high blood pressure, which can lead to heart failure.

The Cardio-Pad can help discover, monitor or rule out heart conditions as a source of pain without expensive trips to cities where cardiologists are based.

Cardiologists are often stationed in cities, making heart diagnostics an expensive trip for millions of Africans living in rural areas.

Launched in 2014, the award aims to reward engineers who have developed innovations that benefit Africans.

There were 12 shortlisted entrants from nine countries in sub-Saharan Africa but only four reached the finals held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The Royal Academy of Engineering conducts the finals at the capital city of the previous year’s winning nation, which means the 2017 finals will be in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

The finalists presented a pitch on their innovations to a panel of judges in front of an audience at the Kilimanjaro Hotel. The award was presented to Arthur Zang by last year’s winner, Dr Hilonga and the head judge Malcolm Brinded, chairman of the Shell Foundation and vice president of the British Energy Institute. Shell funds the awards.

The academy encourages talented engineers from sub-Saharan Africa to develop local solutions to challenges faced in their communities.