Health – Page 4 – Integra LLC

Agriculture, Health, HIV/AIDS, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Fight against HIV/AIDS in India gets helping hand

Argusoft, a Fremont, CA start-up that’s combines video, instant messaging and Internet telephony in a platform for “e-health” programs in the developing world, is ready to implement a mobile phone application that will enable field workers to register HIV-positive mothers and provide regular updates on their care.

The application, called mAID, runs on any java-enabled phone and utilizes the SMS interface. It is designed primarily for health workers that go out into rural communities to inform citizens on different health issues.

Using the application in the field is simple. Cell phones are given to health workers who communicate through the phone to a central database. The health workers are sent daily instructions in the morning via SMS on where to go and which houses to visit. The health workers collect relevant data on HIV/AIDS prevalence and awareness and report the data back to the central database via SMS.

The new program is overseen by the Indian government with financing from the Global Fund, a nonprofit in Geneva that targets AIDS in developing countries. IL&FS, an infrastructure development conglomerate based in Mumbai, is handling logistics.

mAID underwent a pilot test where 35 health workers reached over 2500 patients using the application. The pilot phase ended last month, and based off its results, the Indian government wants to inject 3600 more health workers into the field with the mobile app for a nationwide scale up. There are even talks about using the application in Africa.

Argusoft's Ram Gopalan. Photo Credit: mercurynews.com

The CEO of Argusoft, Ram Gopalan has cited the difficulties of preventing HIV/AIDS as the impetus of his application. “It’s fully preventable, but one of the highest killers of children in the Third World,” Gopalan said.

Gopalan echoes the same sentiments of the Indian Government who have been working to prevent prenatal HIV transmission since 2002, using counseling and testing centers around the country. The Indian Government also cited issues with health worker capacity. Regarding that Gopalan said, “There was a lot of inefficiency, workers misinterpreting instructions, and paperwork getting lost.”

Argusoft is no stranger to implementing eHealth initiatives. In the eastern Indian state of Tripura, Gopalan linked isolated villages with a hospital in the state capital where doctors can remotely diagnose simple but life-altering problems such as cataracts. This telemedicine project has provided eye care for more than 100,000 patients over the past five years.

In the future, Gopalan wishes to introduce a network of accredited family-care doctors from India who could be available 24/7 for live video chats with patients. This is similar to the meradoctor project which already exists in India. In the meantime, the HIV/AIDS burden in India needs some attention as it is the third highest burden in the world in terms of sheer numbers living with HIV.

July 28, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Health, Humanitarian Assistance, Infectious Diseases, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Tweets track down dengue fever in Brazil

Photo Credit: chinaview.cn

A research group led by scientists in Brazil has developed software that tracks outbreaks of dengue fever using the social media outlet twitter. This software was created thanks to coordination between two Brazilian National Institutes of Science and Technology, led by Wagner Meira, a computer scientist at the Federal University of Minas Gerais.

The software is designed to detect the word “dengue” in tweets and information about the sender’s location. The software analyzes the sentence structure and wording to determine if tweets are appropriate for dengue surveillance. Tweets that are deemed spurious or unrelated to dengue fever are filtered out.

During the testing phase, the researchers examined 2,447 tweets about dengue fever sent through the social networking portal between January and May 2009. They found a strong correlation between personal experience tweets about dengue and official data on outbreaks from the Brazilian Ministry of Health.

The research team now plans to analyze 181,845 tweets sent between December 2010 and April 2011, but are waiting for the ministry’s 2011 data before they do so. They also plan to incorporate other key words, mostly symptoms of dengue fever, into their detection scheme to gather more tweets.

Photo Credit: Twitter

This is the first time social media has been used for dengue fever surveillance, but it is not the first time social media has been used for real-time epidemic surveillance. Twitter was used to follow the 2009 swine flu pandemic. Furthermore, it is the first attempt to gather information on people tweeting about their personal experience of a disease.

Google also introduced Google Dengue Trends last month, which records spikes in web searches for dengue fever. Therefore, using social media for surveillance is not a new practice, and nor is tracking dengue using technology. However, Meira’s method is an innovative and efficient way to track dengue fever.

Dengue fever, which can cause hemorrhagic deaths, plagues Brazil ever year. Moreover, every year it emerges in different locations than before. Most Brazilians know how to control and even eradicate the disease, but the majority of citizens don’t take any precautions against it.

On top of that, outbreak notifications take several weeks to process and analyze which impedes officials from assisting citizens. Using Twitter messages could mean a much faster response, says Meira. “It isn’t predicting the future but the present,” he says. “This means we aren’t weeks behind like we used to be.”

July 25, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Health, Health Systems, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

How is coordination possible in mHealth? Experts gather and discuss

The mHealth Working Group, a collaborative forum created in 2009 by K4Health, held a meeting yesterday that focused on the “Coordination of mHealth projects within and between organizations in the field.” The meeting brought together many experts from the field of mHealth in a meeting that was ripe with rich discussion and promising potential going forward in the field.

Representatives at the meeting came from a number of organizations including USAID, K4Health, John Snow Inc. (JSI), mHealth Alliance, and the UN foundation, just to name a few. Therefore, the meeting focused on mHealth implementation in the developing world rather than here at home where mHealth is much more sophisticated.

The overarching theme for the meeting was examining how to promote coordination amongst organizations that are active in mHealth. This is an important issue because of the lack of large scale mHealth efforts programs in the developing world and the dire lack of monitoring in existing mHealth programs.

The discussion began with the current status and perception of mHealth programs in the developing world. Michael Frost, an official from JSI, stated that mHealth is “exploding with a lot of new interest” but “needs to mature a little bit.” He also echoed claims found in the latest mHealth report, that “projects have a narrow focus, and they don’t have strong evaluation principles.”

Photo Credit: USAID

John Novak from USAID discussed the importance of external collaboration and USAID’s current efforts in structuring their standards for doing so. One of his take home messages here was that all parties involved with implementing mHealth projects, including the country government, ministry of Health, telecoms, NGO’s and medical professionals on the ground need to convene and join hands before implementing a project. One suggested way to accomplish this is creating “coordination groups” at the international and country levels that serve to bring the relevant players to the table.

Discussions about the mHealth Summit that took place early last month in Cape Town also surfaced. One presenter mentioned a case study in Bangladesh that highlighted the fruitful impact of government taking control of the telecom industry to implement mHealth initiatives at no cost to citizens. The presenter expressed that governments need to take more active roles in coordinating programs; it is an effective way to get programs rolled out.

Photo Credit: Hub

The meeting produced more than lectures and discussions. Two mHealth resources were presented that are designed to make the process of collaboration and coordinating easier. Frost from JSI discussed their mHealth center whose primary roles are to create mHealth initiatives and assist existing ones by improving communication and information sharing methods within them. The mHealth alliance introduced a new knowledge resource website called Health Unbound (Hub) that aims to bring different stakeholders together to share, collect and produce information on the intersection of technology and health. Hub is planned to be unveiled to the public in about a month.

The core discussion never strayed away from the importance of coordination amongst organizations involved with mHealth initiatives. Nearly everyone seemed to agree that coordination in vital, and all parties involved in the process of creating mHealth programs must be represented in the planning process.

So the next question to ask is, how do you manage to get everyone to the table given each country has a distinct political and economic climate? How do you mediate between governments that want power, telecoms that want money and NGO’s that have ambitious goals? The answer, I learned, is multifaceted. Nonetheless I will attempt to discuss them over the next few posts with the information provided at the meeting. And even better, the answers will continue to be discussed over the next round of mHealth Working Group meetings.

July 21, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Health, Health Systems, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

ICT’s in Health: A Crash Course

The world of ICT is expanding into the health sector, and their interactions are garnering more and more attention by the day. Therefore, we must be mindful of the beginnings and demarcations of ICT usage in health. After all, we can’t know where we are going unless we know where we came from.

Current ICT for health news in the developing world is dominated by initiatives using mobile telephony; the bread and butter of mHealth. This is not a total shock since over 85% of the world now has mobile coverage. Moreover, there are over 5 billion people on Earth with a mobile phone, and 3.5 billion of them are in developing countries. As a result, mHealth initiatives are booming in developing countries, especially in Africa and South Asia.

But what about other forms of ICTs that play a role in healthcare? What are they and how do they work? This crash course on the intersection between ICT and Health will explore the different avenues within that intersection and how to distinguish them from one another to prevent confusion.

Avenues of ICT and Health

Avenues are the different types of structured practices that implement ICTs in the health field. An avenue in the intersection of ICT and health will utilize old technologies, new technologies or a convergence of both in a structured and systematic way to achieve positive health outcomes. These are the different avenues:

eHealth: The term eHealth refers to the practice of using and being supported by electronics in healthcare. eHealth is the umbrella concept for many other avenues of ICT and health such as telemedicine and mHealth. The term is interchangeably used with health informatics by some experts. The term characterizes a way of thinking, an attitude, and a commitment for networked, global thinking, to improve health care locally, regionally, and worldwide by using information and communication technology. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), eHealth is the quintessential embodiment of the intersection of ICTs and health. Electronic health record systems, health information systems, mHealth and telemedicine all fall under the jurisdiction of eHealth.

Telemedicine: Technically, telemedicine has been around for decades, ever since doctors on one end of the phone have consulted patients on the other end of the phone. It pertains to providing remote clinical care through forms of telecommunication and information technologies. What distinguishes telemedicine from telehealth, since they are sometimes incorrectly used interchangeably, is that the former delivers clinical care while the latter offers clinical and non-clinical care such as health research and education. Telemedicine services include live patient consultation over phone or video, remote patient monitoring, medical and health information acquisition, and emergency telemedicine.

mHealth: Also called mobile health, mHealth is a form of eHealth that uses mobile devices such as mobile phones and PDA’s for health services. The Global Observatory for eHealth (GOe) defined mHealth as medical and public health practice supported by mobile devices, such as mobile phones, patient monitoring devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and other wireless devices. mHealth capitalizes on mobile telecommunication services such as SMS, general packet radio service (GPRS), third and fourth generation mobile telecommunications (3G and 4G systems), global positioning system (GPS), and Bluetooth technology.

Health Informatics: This is the field that aims to analyze the information needs of consumers, implement ways to disperse information to consumers and health professionals, and integrate consumer preferences into medical information systems. The field uses devices, resources and methods to store, obtain, retrieve, and disseminate information for healthcare purposes. Health informatics mostly uses computers but also takes advantage of clinical guidelines, advanced medical devices, and ICT services.

July 19, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Family Planning, Health, Health, Maternal & Child Health, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Delivering babies in Ghana just got a little easier

Pregnant woman on phone. Photo Credit: MOTECH

A new mobile phone service was recently launched in Ghana that provides free access to health information in ensuring safe pregnancies. The service, aptly named Mobile Midwife, offers text or voice messaging on maternal health to pregnant women.

Mobile Midwife was developed as part of the U.S. based Grameen Foundation’s MOTECH Ghana initiative, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It is just one more result of rising donor attention to mHealth services. Its creation continues a trend of mHealth initiatives being churned out in Africa.

Educating women and making them aware of the maternal health risks associated with pregnancies are the cornerstone goals of the service. To make it convenient for the user, the service comes in several different languages, and is presented by text or voice via mobile phones. Additionally, the messages are time specific concurring with the woman’s stage of pregnancy.

When a pregnant woman registers for the service, they are asked to give the expected due date for delivery of the unborn child and their location. Then, periodically, the woman receives messages informing when appointments are due or overdue to remind them to visit the health clinic for check-ups.

The users also get reminders for specific treatments, information about milestones in fetal development, nutrition facts, tips on the benefits of breastfeeding and other pregnancy-related and prenatal health information. It also provides information that demystifies local pregnancy myths and helps users overcome the widespread fear of visiting doctors or health clinics.

MOTECH also rolled out a similar mobile health service earlier in the year that enables nurses in rural Ghanaian health facilities to automate much of their record keeping and reporting, which formerly took 4-6 days per month. The service is in the form of a java–based mobile phone application.

Both Mobile Midwife and the application mentioned above have made life easier for everyone involved in the process of delivering a baby.

One Ghanaian mother said to Grameen, “I would like to advise my pregnant friends to go to the hospital to enroll into MOTECH, to listen to the messages and also to practice what is said because it helps a lot…I used to be scared about pregnancy but now with the messages I am no longer scared and it has taken away my worries and that we feel ok and then the pregnancy is ok.”

This service is extremely pertinent since Africa exhibits some of the worst maternal health records in the world. Fourteen of the fifteen countries with the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world are in Africa. Furthermore, African countries are far behind in meeting Millennium Development Goals set for 2015; especially for those associated with maternal health. Perhaps services like this can lend a helping hand.

July 18, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Health, Health Systems, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

MIT researchers link camera technology to healthcare

MIT researchers recently created a smartphone device designed to detect cataracts. Called Catra, the device uses “off -the-shelf components” as opposed to the highly expensive and highly space consuming technologies normally used to detect cataracts.

Using Catra device on smartphone. Photo Credit: EyeCatra

The research group is part of the MIT media lab that won the MIT Global Challenge competition back in May. Taking advantage of mobility through mobile phones and an inexpensive design, Catra was designed for use in the developing world.

The device, which attaches to the screen of a smartphone, costs about $2, whereas a slit lamp examination conventionally used to examine cataracts cost up to $5,000. And unlike conventional slit lamp examinations, Catra does not need a skilled human operator to administer the test and read the results, Catra does everything for the patient.

Catra utilizes a technique, which allows the user to respond to what they visually experience. It scans the lens of the eye section by section. The user then sees projected patterns and presses a few buttons to map the light attenuation in each section of the eye. This information is collected by the device creating an attenuation map of the entire lens. This allows individuals to monitor the progression of the severity of the cataract on their phones.

Catra vs. Slit Lamp technology. Photo Credit: MIT

This is not the MIT media lab’s first project to improve the health of the eye. They are working on a series of projects involving eye care. They developed and released Netra, an application and smartphone attachment for eye exams via mobile phone, last year.

Cataract is a condition where clouding builds up in the lens of the eye. It is the leading cause of avoidable blindness worldwide. Furthermore, ophthalmologists, doctors that specialize on the eye, are scarce in the developing world with one ophthalmologist per million people in some areas. When cataract leads to vision loss, it prevents people from being productive citizens in their community. It leads to high levels of illiteracy and poverty, and can impair a society’s economic and health sectors.

Using mHealth to tackle cataract is a crucial development. However, smartphones are not ubiquitous in the developing world. And it’s for a reason. Even though the Catra device may be cheap, the phones on which they operate are much more expensive. This needs to be considered when implementing Catra on a wide scale in the field. However, with the potential of this kind of technology, it is likely that MIT media lab will find a way.

July 14, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Health Systems, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Recent report highlights challenges in mHealth

Africa’s first mHealth summit was held in June, in Cape Town, South Africa. As a result, the World Health Organization (WHO) produced a report entitled ‘mHealth: New horizons for health through mobile technologies’, which looked at the state of mHealth projects from 112 WHO member countries in 2009.

Photo Credit: mhealthsummit.org

According to the report, currently over 85% of the world’s population is now covered by a commercial wireless signal. Furthermore, 5 billion people own cell phones, and 3.5 billion of them are in middle to low income countries, setting the platform for increase in opportunity for mHealth growth.

The majority of member countries (83%) reported offering at least one type of mHealth service. However, many countries offered four to six programs. The report also cited the four most frequently reported mHealth initiatives as health call centers (59%), emergency toll-free telephone services (55%), managing emergencies and disasters (54%), and mobile telemedicine (49%).

Although mHealth success was lauded by officials, there was no shortage of criticisms and concerns for the future. “Although the level of mHealth activity is growing in countries, evaluation of those activities by Member States is very low (12%). Evaluation will need to be incorporated into the project management life-cycle to ensure better quality results.” said the report.

The lack of evidence prevents policymakers from supporting mHealth infrastructure and as a result funding often goes elsewhere. “In order to be considered among other priorities, mHealth programs require evaluation. This is the foundation from which mHealth (and eHealth) can be measured: solid evidence on which policy-makers, administrators, and other actors can base their decisions,” claimed the report.

mHealth report

Competing health priorities was claimed as the greatest barrier to mHealth adoption by WHO member countries. The report also points out that mHealth services are not yet integrated and are mostly small scale projects targeted for specific communities. Going forward, mHealth will need to “adopt globally accepted standards and interoperable technologies” in order to facilitate effective growth in scaling up mHealth initiatives.

The report says, “Moving towards a more strategic approach to planning, development, and evaluation of mHealth activities will greatly enhance the impact of mHealth. Increased guidance and information are needed to help align mHealth with broader health priorities in countries and integrate mHealth into overall efforts to strengthen health systems.”

In an era where mobile communication is paramount, the services of mHealth may prove to be vital in the development of many low income countries. The report did itself justice by celebrating the successes of mHealth, and then laying down the hurdles to be cleared for sustainable growth. The next mHealth summit is in December in Washington DC.

July 13, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

SMS campaign in India to reach 5.5 million people

Blood bags. Photo Credit: anemia.org

HLL Lifecare Ltd, one of the largest blood bag manufacturers in India, launched a massive SMS blood donation campaign last month, targeting to reach over 5.5 million customers belonging to the top telecommunications company, BSNL.

The campaign, launched by state Health Minister Adoor Prakash on Blood Donation Day last month in Kerala, a southern state in India, wanted to highlight the virtue of blood donation as a civil responsibility for those who are able in order to help those in need.

Prakash also created a help desk called ‘Heart Beats’ designed to assist prospective blood donors. This was funded by the Hindustan Latex Family Planning Promotion Trust (HLFPPT), an organization affiliated with HLL Lifecare, in association with the Kerala State AIDS Control Society.

The purpose of the help desk is to funnel the donors to the patients. Individuals who want to donate blood voluntarily can register their details, including name, place, blood group and phone number either at the help desk or to the help desk via SMS. They are intended to be set up at local health care centers and can also assist patients during emergencies.

India has harbored SMS blood donation programs in the past. Indianblooddonors.com is a website that serves as a database listing for thousands of blood donors from over hundreds of Indian cities. It was launched in 2000 with the SMS component implemented a few years later.

It works in the opposite way of HLL Lifecare’s system. A person in need of blood sends out a text message to a special number, mentioning, in a particular format, his name, city and the blood group required. Within a few seconds, he gets a return SMS with the name and number of a donor in that city.

Photo Credit: HLL Lifecare

Despite having the capability of saving lives, this was a little known service in India. However HLL Lifecare’s current campaign seems to be aiming for much more publicity and awareness on blood donating.

India frequently engages with shortages of blood supply. India usually faces deficits of up to millions of units of blood per year.

Furthermore, isolated populations usually have difficulties reaching out to blood donors and suppliers and often don’t get the blood they desperately need. India’s telecommunications industry is the fastest growing in the world. Nearly 75% of the population, about 900 million people, has mobile phones. Hopefully, this SMS campaign will bring light to the issue of blood donations and help curb the burden by taking advantage of mobile phone prevalence and growth in the country.

July 12, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Health Systems, HIV/AIDS, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

HIV/AIDS: A window of opportunity for South Sudan

Photo Credit: antiimperialism.com

As South Sudan prepares for independence, the celebrations will be tempered by the grim reality that awaits them. The nation is plagued by numerous health burdens due to decades of civil war resulting in a lack of trained health workers and poor infrastructure, and inadequate health and education systems. One such burden is HIV/AIDS. Dr. Wichgoah Piny, the state’s HIV/AIDS commissioner said that about 116,000 people are known to be infected by the virus in South Sudan, 46,000 of which are being treated at hospitals within the region. This number lies in the middle ground when looking at the rest of Africa. East Africa generally has a higher prevalence whereas West Africa exhibits a lower prevalence of the disease. Some estimates say up to 4.7 million in South Sudan are at risk of acquiring the disease.

But those numbers could grow exponentially in the coming years. The World Health Organization (WHO) has described HIV/AIDS prevalence in South Sudan as “a ticking time bomb” and a threat which needs a cooperative and collective effort to fight in the new nation. Dr. Olivia Lomoro, the GoSS Undersecretary in the Ministry of Health who spoke at a South Sudan AIDS conference warned, “HIV/AIDS is a real issue in Southern Sudan despite the efforts we have put to fight it. It remains a threat and a time bomb we are expecting.”

UNAIDS officials in South Sudan

Dr. Mohamed Abdi, the WHO Director in South Sudan said that, “AIDS is a big problem in South Sudan and we need to fight it together.” He said that in more than two years he had worked in the region, very few people were getting treatment.

The consequences of a surge in HIV/AIDS could be catastrophic. The health infrastructure is already poor as it stands. An HIV/AIDS epidemic would paralyze the health sector for years and impair growth in other sectors. This could result in a crisis that no new government would be prepared to handle.

So in a sense, this is a defining moment for the future of health in South Sudan. As the new government establishes itself and its policies, it has the opportunity to be forward looking in the development of its health infrastructure. If HIV/AIDS is afforded a chance to “blow up” as WHO fears, the country will immediately be sunk further into a health crisis.

This presents an opportunistic entry point for the implementation of ICTs into the health sector in South Sudan.

Opportunities

A survey completed in 2006 by WHO revealed that over 910 health facilities existed in South Sudan. At the time, a majority of those facilities were claimed to be in a “deplorable state”. However, Dr. Lomoro recently pledged that Lakes state now has a new hospital which is going to be used as a teaching hospital to help in delivering quality health. She also mentioned investments through the Chinese government will be used to build new health centers and rehabilitate old ones. Incorporating ICTs in the rehabilitation process will pay dividends for the health sector in the future.

South Sudan is being held captive by a number of health issues such as measles, yellow fever and tuberculosis to name a few. Furthermore, South Sudan has up to 80% illiteracy rates in some parts, which make communicating through ICTs invaluable. The most basic forms of ICTs like radio, television and mobile phones can build a communication bridge for the illiterate to keep them connected and informed.

Dr. Lomoro also pointed out that the first target for the Ministry of Health in the Government of South Sudan is the training of health personnel in all the ten states of South Sudan in order to deliver quality health services to the population in a professional standard. One way to go about this would be to include ICT training in that workforce development. Taking this route would build workforce capacity and bolster the development of ICTs in the country.

The population returning from Sudan proper and surrounding African countries are also coming back with health work force skills. So there is a hope that as people return, their skills will be used in improving service delivery.

Several factors exist that support the idea of integrating ICT into the health infrastructure of South Sudan

Present ICT Usage

The market for ICTs is ripe and growing in South Sudan. The initiatives that would make a big impact in fighting HIV/AIDS using ICTs utilize mobile phones and radios as the media for communication. These media platforms are the largest in South Sudan.

Photo Credit: biztechafrica.com

A 2007 survey entitled “Media Access and Use in Southern Sudan,” showed that radio was the main source of information for the population as a whole with 59% of respondents citing the radio as a source of information, the highest out of all forms of media. Additionally, HIV/AIDS awareness radio programs make up 17% of the most popular radio programs. This indicates that HIV/AIDS discussions already have a base in South Sudan media.

Mobile phones on the other hand don’t enjoy such high rates of usage as radio due to 30% coverage rates. However, the mobile phone network has expanded considerably since 2005 and is predicted to keep expanding in the near future. Also noteworthy is that only 14% of South Sudanese get their information from newspapers and 13% from television according to a report. It’s clear that radio and mobile phones are the most widely used avenues of communication in South Sudan.

Plans to expand broadband cables

As recently reported, South Sudan is on the shortlist to receive fiber optic broadband cables. Broadband services make it possible to interconnect affiliated healthcare facilities around the country so that they can utilize and share scarce human and technical equipment resources to deliver quality and affordable healthcare services. These cables can establish a foundation for ICTs not just in health, but for all sectors in South Sudan.

Past Successful HIV/AIDS Programs

South Sudan won’t be the guinea pig for using ICTs for HIV/AIDS either. There have been quite a few successful HIV/AIDS programs in the past that succeeded in similar environments:

Targeting Nomadic Populations – USAID and other external NGO’s worked together in Nepal in 2005 to introduce a radio program on HIV/AIDS awareness by integrating entertainment into its programming

Capitalizing on existing media penetration:

o Radio – Tanzania also introduced the Tunajali HIV/AIDS Care and Treatment Radio Program in 2010 with the help of PEPFAR.

o Mobile – Two mobile phone programs, Text to Change(TTC) and Freedom HIV/AIDS used mobile phones to reach thousands of people to educate them on HIV/AIDS

Photo Credit: freedom HIV/AIDS

South Sudan should approach some of the major NGO’s on the ground to help implement these initiatives that use ICTs. Organizations like USAID, WHO, UNICEF and the UN have spearheaded many initiatives like the ones described above in the developing world. They should at the very least try to do the same in South Sudan. They need to realize the opportunity at hand.

Possible ICT Policy

So the framework to set South Sudan off on the right foot is present just as they kick off their sovereignty. However, an HIV/AIDS epidemic is a threat. The markets for intervention exist, proven initiatives exist and they can be adopted using the aforementioned plans to establish new broadband cables. All of the stars have aligned. The tricky part is getting officials to the table and churning out an action plan. This will involve NGO officials talking with South Sudanese Government officials and making this opportunity a priority.

South Sudan has already seen its darkest days. They want to move now from being a hub for relief efforts to a hub for development. The health sector can benefit tremendously from using ICTs to prevent an HIV/AIDS disaster. Once HIV/AIDS is under control, the ICTs can be utilized strategically to tackle other health issues, as they are being done all over Africa and the developing world. If not, it may not be long before South Sudan encounters its darkest days once again.

July 8, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Health Systems, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Drug traders paying pharmaceuticals for counterfeit drug detection?

U.S. based social enterprise Sproxil announced the start of its counterfeit drug detection program in India two weeks ago. This comes after the company announced it would receive a $1.8 million financial backing from Acumen Fund to expand its operations to India back in March 2011.

Sproxil is well known for its Mobile Product Authentication (MPA) architecture which fights the distribution of counterfeit drugs in developing nations. The MPA system takes advantage of the mobile phone market which is widely accessible in Africa. MPA uses scratch off cards that come with purchased drugs. These scratch off cards display a unique identifier which is texted to the pharmaceutical supplier to verify the authenticity of the drugs.

Photo Credit: Sproxil

When drugs depart the factory they are manufactured at, the scratch off card with the unique identifier accompanies every package manufactured ensuring authenticity from the source. When the drug is purchased, customers can scratch the card and text the identifier to a number provided by Sproxil from any cell phone and receive verification within seconds on the authenticity of the drugs. Sproxil says the texts are free of charge to the consumer.

Sproxil has affected the lives of many uninformed consumers before going into India. They established the first national mobile-based anti-counterfeit program in Africa and has already sold millions of anti-counterfeit labels which provide services to several global pharmaceutical companies, the company says. Drug suppliers in Africa that have lost potential revenue claimed to have covered for their losses and even experienced growth after using MPA.

Sproxil moves to a market in India that is suffering from counterfeit drug trade. “India has one of the largest pharmaceutical markets in the world, but is plagued by counterfeit (spurious) medicines made elsewhere that tarnish brand India,” said Ashifi Gogo, CEO of Sproxil. Gogo cites the recent success of a pilot program in Nigeria as the basis to expand to India. Sproxil’s Mobile Product Authentication technology has touched the lives of over 80,000 people, helping patients avoid getting ripped off by counterfeiters,” said Gogo.

Photo Crdit: SRxA

The world of counterfeit drug trade is a devastating one. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), up to 30% of drugs sold in developing nations are counterfeit with the counterfeit drug market estimated at $200 billion by the World Customs Organization (WCO). The number of deaths and drug resistance levels continue to rise due to consumption of fake drugs, which is creating a healthcare nightmare.

The MPA system is a cost effective and relatively simple way to track fake drugs for both consumers and (authentic)drug suppliers. To allay the costs of his service, Gogo thinks his system gets drug counterfeiters to pay for MPA services. “Consumers are not paying, government is not paying as well. Pharmaceuticals are paying Sproxil to recoup shares lost to counterfeiters. So in some sense, the counterfeiters are paying for this service.”

In any case, Sproxil seems poised to make a dent in India’s counterfeit drug trade, and it is much needed.