Mobiles combat Kenyan polio outbreak

>EpiSurveyor tracked an emergency vaccination campaign in KenyaA mobile phone based health application has helped to investigate and contain a polio outbreak that threatened thousands in East Africa.

Health officials in Kenya used the life saving application, EpiSurveyor, after refugees fleeing violence in Somalia introduced the first case of polio into the country in more than 20 years.

The application can be downloaded onto handheld devices to log patients' symptoms and any treatment they receive.

Kenyan health workers modified the survey forms used by EpiSurveyor to track an emergency vaccination campaign and managed to stop a potential epidemic in its tracks.

EpiSurveyor has been funded by the United Nations and Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership, which is using strategic technology programmes to strengthen UN humanitarian efforts worldwide. It is free to use and is run on an open-source basis.

The trial in Kenya has been so successful that this week the World Health Organisation has announced that it is expanding the project to another 20 countries in Africa.

Outbreak success Mobiles combat Kenyan polio outbreak

The BBC World Service's Digital Planet radio programme spoke to Dr Patrick Nguku from the Kenyan Health Ministry where the project has been piloted.

"In 2006 after 21 years of absence of polio in Kenya, we did confirm a case in our north eastern province and this was followed by massive immunisation campaigns to try and protect susceptible children.

"We used EpiSurveyor to basically control our supplies, monitor which areas needed to be vaccinated and the quick flow of information helped us in achieving very good results", he added.

Texts tackle HIV in South Africa

The text messages have encouraged people to get tested for HIV

The popularity of mobile phones in South Africa is helping to tackle HIV and Aids in the nation.

Project Masiluleke will send one million free text messages a day to push people to be tested and treated.

Approximately 350,000 people die of Aids-related diseases in the country every year.

Trials of the system showed that calls to counsellors at the National Aids helpline in Johannesburg increased by 200% when messages were broadcast.

"I think this is the largest ever use of mobile phones for health information," said Gustav Praekelt, one of the project's originators.

Test case

The United Nations estimates that there are currently six million people living with HIV in South Africa.

"South Africa is the epicentre of the global HIV epidemic," said Zinny Thabethe, an HIV activist who is part of the project.

"You would think that in a country where it is so obvious that we are challenged by HIV that there would be enough knowledge to help people access care or change behaviour."

However, she said, misinformation and stigma remained rife in many communities and testing levels remained low.

"HIV testing is widely available ...but only 5% have managed to test for HIV," she said. "Most people only get a test when they are about to die."

Project Masiluleke was set up to try to counter this and encourage people to seek testing and treatment.

The initiative plans to broadcast millions of health messages every month to mobile phones across South Africa.

It is estimated that there are currently 43m handsets in a country of 49m people. Almost 95% of the phones are prepaid.

"There is near universal coverage," said Mr Praekelt. "And in the absence of other services, the mobile phone has become the central component for people to get access to information."

The system sends the messages using a so-called "Please Call Me" (PCM) service.

This free form of text messaging, found across Africa, allows someone without any phone credit to send a text to a friend asking them to call.

Each sent PCM message has the words "Please Call Me," the phone number of the caller, and space for an additional 120 characters.

The extra space is normally filled with advertising, which helps offset the cost of running the service.

Texts tackle HIV in South Africa