Cell Phones: The Hope Of Africa

Just over a year ago a well-recognized authority, Seth Berkley created a post in the "MIT Technology Review" regarding the enhancement of wellness treatment in Africa as a result of the common usage of cellular phones there. Mr. Berkley has been chosen as Time Magazine's"100 Most Influential People in the World", and also he has been Chief Executive Officer of numerous crucial international firms. He explained that with cell phones there is much better real-time reporting of disease surveillance and also monitoring, better information collection and also hence much better allowance of sources such as vaccines.

"Further down the line, we can expect other advances through technological developments at the device end. Researchers like Jonathan Cooper at the University of Glasgow, in Scotland, are now developing ways to shrink huge, complex laboratory equipment onto tiny, disposable, acoustically driven microfluidic devices which can be plugged into a cell phone to turn it into a portable lab. Similarly, Aydogan Ozcan at the University of California, Los Angeles, is doing remarkable work enabling the cameras of cell phones to be used to perform fluorescent flow cytometry for diagnostic imaging. Eventually these kinds of technologies may enable health-care workers to carry out on-the-spot diagnostics for diseases in even the most remote of regions."

He ends his post by anticipating that even an improvement of 1 % would lessen the fatalities of children under 5 by 69,000 annually. It's regrettable just what has taken place in just this past year since Mr. Berkley released his post. The spread of ebola has altered his hopeful forecasts in certain countries.

However, cellular phones are still playing a key role. Another writer, Amanda Puckett, a technical adviser for IntraHealth International, has picked up the ball, and reports about using cellular phones after her return from Sierra Leone in September 2014.

Information is power, and mobile phone reporting has offered everyone a more clear version of the infection rate in addition to exactly what needs to be done. Furthermore, they are utilizing a system called mHero (Health Worker Electronic Response and Outreach). It has hooked up 19 African countries including the countries with ebola break outs, ideally to keep it from infecting various other countries. It is additionally tied right into UNICEF's SMS platform to make messaging services faster. It can additionally send wellness employees reputable information about procedures and prevention (as much as is known now).

"mHero can immediately access health workforce data—including mobile phone numbers—from iHRIS and DHIS 2, allowing Ministry of Health users to create targeted communications for over 8,000 health workers of specific types (doctors, clinic officers, or pharmacists, for example) and in specific locations (such as the epicenter of an outbreak)."

In summary, cellular phones are now being made use of in Africa for a variety of functions besides communication - medical diagnosis, information collection, clinical therapy procedures, circulating reputable information to the "front line" employees and also ultimately moral support to those who are risking their very own lives to bring this epidemic in control.