By: Peter Purton

Private companies and public bodies including the United States government have joined together to fight HIV/AIDS and other health challenges in Africa.

The $10-million-plus project—dubbed Phones for Health—uses the growing coverage of mobile phones to strengthen health systems.

A pilot version of the service has been tested for the past three years in Rwanda. It allows medical professionals in the field to access and maintain records, check availability of medications, and access other information at central locations through their mobile phones.

Now the service is set to be rolled out in Nigeria and after that in eight other African countries.

“Personal computers can still be a luxury in Africa, but the mobile phone can reach places we never dreamed possible five years ago,” said Rob Conway, chief executive of the GSM Association (GSMA), on Tuesday after announcing the roll-out.

He estimated that 60 percent of the African population live in areas with mobile phone network coverage and that, by the end of the decade, the proportion could exceed 85 percent.

Although the services will first concentrate on helping combat HIV/AIDS in the region, as they mature they will also be used to combat other diseases affecting the region such as malaria and tuberculosis.

Transforming Technology
The project is receiving support from a number of organizations, including the GSMA, the South African mobile phone network operator MTN, the IT and management consultancy Accenture, and the U.S. government’s program to fight HIV/AIDS.

“The explosive spread of mobile phone networks across the developing world has created a new opportunity to significantly transform how countries can tackle global health challenges,” said Dr. Howard Zucker, assistant director general of the World Health Organization.

“The results in Rwanda have surpassed our expectations,” Paul Meyer, co-founder and president of the system’s developer, Voxira, told Red Herring. “It’s no longer a pilot. All health workers working with HIV/AIDS have access to it, and although the system can be accessed from PCs, 90 percent of them use their mobile phones.”

To cope with the variety of network conditions faced by health workers in Africa, the information can be exchanged using SMS (short message service), interactive voice, or J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) applications running on the device.

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