Tabibu Update #1: Tabibu can now read your documents

This is the newest Tabibu update. Tabibu can now read your documents.

Tabibu is a free health-information assistant. It started in Kenya and is built for people in other countries too. Until now you could only type a question. Now, on the website, you can add a lab report, a prescription, a PDF, a Word file or a photo of one. Tabibu reads it, explains it in plain words, and gives you questions to ask your clinician.

What it accepts

PDF (text or scanned), Word (.docx), plain text and Markdown, and JPG, PNG or WEBP photos, up to 8 MB. The feature is for Basic and Pro plans. Free accounts cannot upload files.

How it works, in two steps

1. A vision model transcribes the file into text.
2. The normal text-only Tabibu pipeline explains that text.

The second step is the same one that answers typed questions, with the same safety rules. The file never goes straight to the part that talks to you.

What it will not do

• It will not diagnose you.
• It will not tell you a result is "normal" or "fine".
• It will not tell you to start, stop or change a medicine. Doses are repeated only as printed on the document.
• It does not read X-ray, CT or MRI images, or photos of skin. If you upload one, it says so. A radiology report is different: Tabibu explains it by quoting what the radiologist wrote.

I kept image reading out on purpose. Interpreting a scan or a skin photo is a medical-device question, and I would rather say "I can't" than guess.

What happens to your file

The file and the text read from it are not stored or logged. Photos have their location data (EXIF) removed. Only your question and Tabibu's answer are saved, for about 48 hours, like any chat. There is now an opt-in "Keep 30 days" button if you want to come back to a chat after you have seen a doctor. It is off unless you turn it on, and chats that involved a file cannot be kept. Answers about files never enter the shared answer cache.

How I tested it

I used made-up documents only, never real patient files: lab reports, a prescription, a Word note, radiology reports, a DICOM file. What I checked:

• A prescription: doses came back exactly as printed.
• An X-ray report: the answer quoted the radiologist and did not say the scan was fine.
• A file with a hidden instruction telling the model to call every result normal: it ignored the instruction and said it had.
• A DICOM file: it refused.

The limits, which matter more than the wins

• In my testing, about 1 in 8 radiology reports ended on a safe fallback: "here is the text I read, and questions for your clinician" instead of a full explanation. It is never a wrong claim, but it is not the full answer, and I am not counting it as a success.
• These were spot checks on a small set of made-up documents. I have not run a full evaluation, so I am not publishing an accuracy number.
• There is no clinician review of the policy yet. Kiswahili answers are AI-reviewed only.
• WhatsApp document reading is in testing and is not open to everyone.
• I have not measured the cost per file end to end yet.

The limits are listed on the trust page, and I update them when they change.

One question

On a public health benchmark, a plain AI model scored higher than Tabibu on my own re-run (0.522 against 0.426, not the official leaderboard). I wrote about why here. So the test does not tell me what you want. Do you want a health AI that tells you what you have and what to take, one that explains and sends you to a clinician, or something in between? Tell me in the comments.

Tabibu gives general health information, not a diagnosis or medical advice.