, , , , , ,

To UNICEF and WHO: Don’t forget to monitor your vaccines

Children and women waiting to get diagnosed in clinic. Photo Credit: WHO

In the wake of the drought and famine being experienced in the Horn of Africa, multiple vaccination campaigns have been launched in the region. UNICEF, WHO and Kenya’s Ministry of Health (MOH) are launching a campaign for the children situated in the Dadaab refugee camp in Northern Kenya, which is already triple the amount beyond its refugee capacity. UNICEF is also launching a solo campaign for children in the Horn of Africa, with a particular focus on Somalia.

The UNICEF and WHO-backed campaign in Dadaab will target 202,665 children under five years of age, with measles and polio vaccines, together with Vitamin A and de-worming tablets. The campaign is part of a regional push to ensure all children in drought affected areas are vaccinated against a killer disease like measles which can be deadly for malnourished children, and be protected from polio.

The solo UNICEF campaign for the rest of the Horn of Africa includes a strategy to vaccinate every child in Somalia under the age of 15 against measles which totals over 2.5 million children.

“This is a child survival crisis,” said Elhadj As Sy, UNICEF Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa. “Children don’t die just because they don’t have enough food. In various stages of malnutrition, they are more prone to sickness and disease. As big a challenge as the rates of malnutrition pose, the danger for children extends even further.”

“Malnutrition can weaken a child’s immune system, increasing their susceptibility to infectious diseases like measles and polio,” says Ibrahim Conteh, UNICEF Dadaab Emergency Coordinator. “We are acting now because these diseases can spread very quickly in overcrowded conditions like we have now in the camps.”

Measles is a highly contagious disease which can flourish in unsanitary and overcrowded environments like refugee camps. Measles reduces a child’s resistance to illness and makes them more likely to die when they are malnourished and suffering from other diseases.

Launching a vaccination campaign in the Horn of Africa is no simple task, even without a drought crisis to worry about. The region experiences atrocious coverage rates as evidenced by Southern Somalia where vaccination coverage is just 26%, one of the lowest in the world.

This suggests that there may be issues with the cold chain transportation of vaccines in the region. In the developing world, transporting vaccinations is complicated as high temperatures, scarce resources, unreliable electricity, and long distances between health care facilities can all break the chain.

Mobile vaccine refrigerator. Photo Credit: True Energy

This means that as UNICEF, WHO and the Kenyan MOH roll out of their campaigns, they must take extra precautions to make sure vaccine spoilage is minimized as much as possible. So many children’s lives depend on the vaccines being functional and on time.

Most, if not all of the vaccines being distributed in the campaigns will be transported using mobile vaccine refrigerators. There are mobile refrigerators currently in use all over the developing world that utilize innovative vaccine monitoring systems.

SmartConnect box

True Energy, a company highlighted in the past supplies a grid powered or solar powered refrigerator that offers vial vaccine monitoring to monitor the temperature of the vaccines along the cold chain. They also include a SmartConnect SMS monitoring system that sends out an SMS to the recipient alerting them of temperature changes along the cold chain for instantaneous monitoring.

PATH is one organization that has purchased these vaccine refrigerators with the SmartConnect capability. UNICEF has also commissioned these refrigerators from True Energy and is shipping the refrigerators for use in over 30 countries. Furthermore, the True Energy refrigerators meet WHO cold chain requirements.

Therefore, there should be no excuse for inadequate monitoring of vaccines amidst the vaccination campaigns. The technologies exist to ensure cold chain efficiency. Moreover, UNICEF and WHO have both recently dabbled with these existing technologies.

With reports that the drought in the Horn of Africa has not yet reached its peak, the vaccination efforts must be successful or millions of children may suffer the consequences.

/by
, ,

The Caribbean and Climate Change?

Although Caribbean countries are low greenhouse gas emitters, they will disproportionately bear the potential economic effects of continued climate change: greater loss from hurricanes, diminished tourism revenue, and infrastructural damage. According to the report “The Caribbean and Climate Change: The Costs of Inaction”, a study commissioned by Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the cost of inaction will amount to more than a fifth of GDP by 2100 in Dominica, Grenada, Haiti, St. Kitts & Nevis and Turks & Caicos.

While the region is off to a slow start in its adaptation and mitigation measures, Guyana embarked on a Low Carbon Development Strategy last year, which it says creates a path for the a low deforestation, low carbon, climate resilient economy—a green growth environment. This is an indicator of the state’s commitment to utilize Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to improve environmental management and respond to climate change. According to the OECD’s Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry, the biggest gains for smarter environmental and economic strategies and applications are in power generation and distribution, buildings and transportation, sectors which are major emitters of greenhouse gases. To that list, one would add endangered biodiversity, and water management systems–major concerns for the sparsely populated country.

However, Guyana’s admirable green economy backed by ICTs will depend on massive improvements in ICT infrastructure (service and access), that is available to and used by a larger portion of the population. Currently, Guyanese have less access to internet, broadband and personal computers than the average for Latin America and the Caribbean. Improving these indicators will be crucial for the state to achieve its objective of doubling the number of Guyanese employed in the Business Process Outsourcing industry by 2013.

 

/by
, , , , ,

MediBabble: A free tool no health professional should be without

Dr. Brad Cohn (left) and Dr. Alex Blau (right) Photo Credit: ucsf.edu

An Apple app was released earlier this summer that translates medical history questions from English into other languages. The app, called MediBabble, was designed by doctors Alex Blau and Brad Cohn, a duo of physicians from San Francisco.

The idea for the app sprouted from a 2 a.m. conversation while the two were still in medical school. The conversation stemmed from frustrations over not being able to understand patients that did not speak English, and not having an immediate translating tool to help them out.

“Ninety percent of diagnoses come from the patient’s self-reported medical history, so the ability to communicate is critical,” Blau said. “Time is not an asset doctors or patients have. You need that information when you need it.”

MediBabble is currently being distributed for free on Apple’s iTunes, and has more than 8,000 downloads to date. The app has been lauded by several mHealth entities and has even won a few awards for its benefits to the medical world.

MediBabble was designed for Apple products with touch-screen software, such as the iPhone or iPad. The app allows health care providers to play medical history questions and instructions out loud, so far in five languages, to patients that don’t understand English. Currently, the available languages are Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Russian and Haitian Creole.

The questions range from basic examination questions such as “Can you tell me your name?” to more specific inquiries like, “Do you get recurring lung infections?” The app has more than 2,500 exam questions in its arsenal to translate.

Photo Credit: itunes.apple.com

MediBabble’s interface is structured on a symptom-based approach already commonly used by medical practitioners worldwide. It starts by gathering information about the current complaint and then proceeds into social, family and medication histories; and a review of systems; all for over sixty common chief complaints across eleven organ systems.

According to Blau and Cohn, no medical translation app existed prior to theirs. Therefore, this is the first of its kind seen anywhere. A key feature is that the internet is not needed for full functionality. Once downloaded, the app can be utilized anywhere, at anytime as long as the mobile device has power.

This tool is currently paying dividends for health professionals in the developed world. However, MediBabble can easily be utilized by health processionals that encounter language barriers working on the ground in developing countries. The fifth language, Haitian Creole, was implemented for the earthquakes that struck Haiti in 2010. Therefore, it had already transcended the domestic boundaries.

After taking a look at its features, one realizes that the app is already acclimated for use in the developing world:

  • Once downloaded, it does not require an internet connection to deliver its service
  • it provides detailed examination instructions to the user
  • it has a self-guided tutorial that can teach someone like a community health worker or volunteer how to use it on the fly
  • it compensates for the deaf and/or noisy environments by having a mode that enables a full screen display in large letters

Utilizing MediBabble, health professionals from the developed world who go on aid missions around the world will worry less about language barriers. This may decrease the time it takes to examine a patient which means more patients can be examined and treated in the long run. The tool can change the way health workers interact with and treat citizens of the developing world. Therefore, aid agencies and NGO’s that deploy health professionals cannot overlook this tool.

Perhaps it won’t be long until MediBabble is used in the developing world. Blau and Cohn said the next five languages being introduced are German, French, Urdu, Hindi and Arabic. Four of those five tongues are predominantly spoken in certain developing countries.

Furthermore, Blau and Cohn intend to keep their app free. So far they have been able to do it with funding contributions from Apple, Google and Twitter. As long as the app is free, the tool will cost health professionals nothing, making it even more appealing for use in resource poor areas.

 

/by
, , , , , ,

Measuring and Assessing Gov 2.0, Election Monitoring, & Citizen Media

This summer I have wrote a lot about good governance programs to fight corruption, improve government effectiveness and accountability, and how they they are crucial to developing countries economic development, overall prosperity, and empowerment of civil society. One issue, however, can be the monitoring and evaluation of democracy and governance projects, which can sometimes be difficult–public opinion surveys as a form of measurement can be fraudulent, or uneven, and systems can be disorderly. Although ICTs are not a panacea for a development, they can help to streamline democratic and good governance strategies, and embolden civil society to play a participatory role. Some of the ways ICTs can be employed in democracy and governance projects, such as e-government strategies, election monitoring systems and enabling citizen media, can drastically improve the efficiency of these initiatives. Based on what I have learned so far, below are suggestions for monitoring and evaluation for an e-governance strategy, how to implement an election monitoring system from the beginning til the end, and how best to measure the effectiveness of citizen media:

1. E-government and Participation

  • Benefits: Transparency can be enhanced through the free sharing of government data based on open standards. Citizens are empowered to question the actions of regulators and bring up issues. The ability of e-government to handle speed and complexity can also underpin regulatory reform.  E-government can add agility to public service delivery to help governments respond to an expanded set of demands even as revenues fall short.

First, on the project level, question if the inputs used for implementation and direct deliverables were actually produced. The government’s progression or regression should not rely solely on this because there are other outside variables. For the overall implementation, ask if the resources requested in place, and were the benchmarks that were set reached? Featured below is a timeline on how to implement a good e-government strategy.

Phases of e-government

Source: ITU

 

2. Strengthen Rule of Law with Crowdsource Election monitoring:

  • Benefits: Support for election monitoring may be provided prior to and/or during national or local elections and can encourage citizens to share reports from their community about voting crimes, ballot stuffing and map these crimes using Ushahidi. By documenting election crimes, it can provide evidence of corrupt practices by election officials, and empower citizens to become more engaged.
  • Drawbacks: Publicizing information to the  broad public means without checking the information’s validity these systems can be abused in favor of one political party or the other, and elections can be highly contested.
Photo Credit: movement.org

Photo Credit: movement.org

 

Below are systematic instructions on how to implement the “all other stuff” needed for a election monitoring system, like Ushahidi:

Step 1. Create a timeline that includes goals you have accomplished by different marker points leading up to the election, and reaching target audiences

Step 2. The more information reports the better for the platform, but consider a primary goal and focus on filtering information about that goal to the platform, put it in the About section.

Step 3. Target your audience and know how they can be reached for example

  • Community partners
  • Crowd
  • Volunteers

Step 4. Figure out who your allies are—NGOs and civil society organizations that will want to support, and provide resources for more free and fair elections in your country. Figure out what groups would be best for voter education, voter registration drives, civic engagement or anti-corruption. Building a new strategy on top of the already existing ones will help to promote the campaign and making it more sustainable overtime.

Step 5. Reach out and meet with the groups you have targeted—and make sure to identify people from that country living abroad, reach out to the diaspora. Ask yourself the following questions when the program is implemented: should all reports be part of the same platform? Should reports come in before voting begins or just offenses taking place during elections? What about outreach after the election takes place for follow-up M&E?

Step 6. Get the word out to as many citizens as possible using flyers, local media, and target online influencers, such as those on Twitter or Facebook. Attract volunteers to assist in the overall outreach and publicity plan—a volunteer coordinator, technical advisor and, if possible, a verification team or local representatives, to relay and confirm what monitoring the electoral processes is all about.

Step 7. Information sources:

  • Mobiles: Frontline SMS can work as reception software for submissions via text.
  • Email/Twitter/Facebook: Consider creating a web form to link people to on social networks which asks for everything you need, including, detailed location information, category and multimedia.
  • Media Reports and Journalists: Have volunteers look in the news for relevant information to be included in the reports
  • Verification team: Either a local organization or journalist works best—on site that is able to receive alerts from the platform on events happening around their polling stations to be able to verify what is going on. Cuidemos el Voto modeled Ushahidi slightly for incoming reports from whitelisted people to show up automatically, for example non-governmental election monitoring organizations.

Step 9. Monitoring and Evaluation

  • Closing the loop of information: How will you show citizens who provided information on electoral fraud that you received it? Have a system in place to tell community representatives that the information was received and it will be acted upon.
  • How will you act on that information in the country’s courtrooms, though? Make sure to preserve the documentation of election fraud that your platform has received so that it can serve to hold the perpetrators accountable in court.

3. Citizen Media

Citizen media allows content to be produced by private citizens outside of large media conglomerates and state run media outlets to tell their stories and provide bottom up information. Also known as citizen journalism, participatory media, and democratic media, citizen media is burgeoning with all of the technological tools and systems available that simplify the production and distribution of media

  1. Benefits: In addition to the above-mentioned benefits, citizen media also allows a sense of community where up-to date news covers a variety of angles, stories, and topics found in hard to reach places.
  2. Drawbacks: It can be risky for the citizens journalists and their supporters. They can be identified and targeted by members of the oppression, where they will be put in jail or tortured. There is no gatekeeping, verifying, or regulating the information—this is not a problem when it comes to video or photos, but definitely with information. Also, connectivity issues may not allow citizens to upload the information.
  3. Helpful Resources: This journalist’s toolkit is a training site for multimedia and online journalists.
  4. Monitoring and Evaluation for citizen media projects: Governments have foreign policy and economic agendas that guide their choices on how they fund projects, therefore, it’s important that the grantees and activists understand and share the same objectives. This is also beneficial to learn from projects over time to avoid redundancy and enhance efficiency of implementation.
  5. Measurement approaches—Some corporate funding agencies like the Gates Foundation, Skoll Foundation, and Omidyar Network insist on measuring citizen media projects, while other funding agencies like the Knight Foundation insist less on measurement. It’s important to measure both quantitative and qualitative outcomes and give constructive feedback to the contributors so that they can become more effective.
  • Quantitative—Objectives may sometimes change in response to your context, but keep the end goal in mind, continue to measure yourself against the objectives. This can be done through web analytics or web metrics—website performance monitoring service to understand and optimize website usage
  • Qualitative—Primarily anecdotal and used to shift policy objectives. In the end, however, it’s about visualizing the change you are trying to bring in the world, and making it happen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

/by
, ,

Mozambique Socially Invests in ICTs for Rural Development

While recent studies in the developed world show that the Internet actual reinforces economic disparity and even social classes, Mozambique is taking a unique approach to utilize information and communication technologies (ICTs) to break down economic and social disparity.

The government signed a memorandum of understanding with a domestic service provider, MCEL, to roll out Internet and mobile services specifically in rural areas.  The two allocated $255 to this effort.

Current Internet penetration in Mozambique is only at 2.7% (2010 data), and mobile penetration is at 26% (2009 data), slightly lower than its neighbors.  As can be seen on the following map, coverage is limited in Mozambique.

It is surprising, then, that the government is taking specific action to bring Internet and mobile access to rural populations, since penetration in urban areas is still quite low.  People in urban areas arguably have greater need for the Internet and mobile services for their jobs, while rural people tend to communicate less with others and focus on agricultural production.

Photo: Mark.W.E

The expansion of ICT services to rural Mozambique can stimulate human development in rural areas, however, when used correctly.  There are plenty of applications that apply particularly to rural peoples, like mHealth and mAgriculture such as Esoko and Medic Mobile.  The Mozambique government is hoping that an increase in ICT access in rural areas will stimulate human development there, which will in turn raise the economy and eliminate disparity.

In other words, Mozambique’s ICT policy displays the fact that it has different development priorities than many other developing countries.  If they were totally focused on economic growth, they would use their funds to increase connectivity and ICT services in urban areas, which would increase the use of ICTs by those who are most likely to use ICTs for business endeavors.  However, Mozambique is instead utilizing their ICT funds for social goals, like helping the poorest of the poor.  Many countries talk about bringing access to the poor through their Universal Access Funds, but Mozambique is actually funding socially-justifiable ICT programs over economically-justifiable ones.  They deserve a round of applause.

 

/by
, ,

Citizen Journalist? Consult the Mobile Media Toolkit

Screenshot of the Mobile Media toolkit

The recent rebellions in the Middle East and North Africa have shown to the world the power of recording and disseminating revolutionary events often denied by oppressive regimes; and the proliferation of mobile phones has proved to be a necessary piece of media weaponry for these citizen journalists.

How then, can mobiles be used to maximize the efficiency of their citizen journalists?

The Mobile Media Toolkit created by MobileActive, clarifies problems that may arise while using mobiles in media and assists citizen journalists in their endeavors to deliver their own perspectives of events to the rest of the world.

The Toolkit—available in English, Spanish and Arabic—provides how-to guides, wireless tools, and case studies on how mobile phones are being used for reporting, news broadcasting, and citizen media.

Citizen journalists often report out of necessity so mobile phones are a rapid, covert, and cheap communications channel to suits their needs.  In hostile regions where journalism is censored or banned altogether, citizen reporters must be prepared for reacting to quickly changing situations and security measures.

MobileActive’s online resource has information relevant for varying prototypes, from the basic Java phones to the latest smartphone. The tool kit has five main components consisting of:

  1. Creating the Content—Knowing how to capture multimedia enables reporters to capture breaking news and information at a moment’s notice.  This section discusses capturing content (like photos, video, audio, and location information) on phones, both smartphones and otherwise; editing that content; (briefly) sharing that content online.
  2. Sharing Content from Mobile to Media—Explores content platforms that let mobile phone users (including trained journalists, untrained content producers, or even “readers”) easily upload content to various mediums. This section also looks at blogging, microblogging, and uploading multimedia.
  3. Delivering Content Online from Media to Media—Covers how to make content (text, audio, video, and more) accessible to a mobile audience in various ways, including text message alerts, audio channels like phone calls and radio, mobile web, mobile apps, and location-based services.
  4. Engaging the Audience—This section articulates how to engage audiences on their mobile phones to make it more participatory.  Since social media has become an important conduit for engagement, understanding mobile social media, “listening” to the audiences are saying, and thinking about audiences as participants and content creators rather than passive recipients of content. The section focuses on helping media organizations see their mobile-using audiences as participants in the media process.
  5. Making Sure Information is Secure
  • The Mobile Surveillance Primer helps identify and understand the risks involved with mobile communication in citizen journalist’s work. The Primer goes over basic mobile surveillance, and acknowledges what kind of information can be transmitted by or stored in your phone.
  • The Tips and Tools section discusses specific use cases
  • Mobile Active’s Security Risk Primer—to help activists, human rights defenders, and journalists assess the mobile communications risks that they are facing, and then use appropriate mitigation techniques to increase their ability to organize, report, and work more safely.

MobileActive’s new Mobile Media Toolkit covers all the bases in what citizen journalists should know about reporting with their mobile phones.

Hopefully this how-to initiative will encourage more citizen journalism efforts beyond the Middle East and North Africa to all repressive governments, enhancing efforts for citizens to hold their government’s more accountable and transparent.

 

 

/by
, , ,

Texts and Balances: Nigeria’s 2011 Election

Photo: MobileActive

In Nigeria’s presidential election this April, election observers sent over 35,000 daily text messages to document validity or corruption of the election counting and results.  The theory behind Project Swift Count 2011 was that having election observers at voting locations around the nation equipped with mobile phones could immediately report foul play.  The theory worked—statistically significant samples by independent organizations verified the published election results from the Nigerian election bureau—indicating that corruption was minimal or nonexistent.

The National Democratic Institute worked with the government of Nigeria to hire 8000 election observers to monitor 4000 voting stations.  A parallel vote count was collected and corruption monitored and reported.  The observers documented peoples votes, whether they were pressured by anyone, and if all the candidates were listed.  Then, the observers each sent a minimum of five text messages during the course of voting to verify the following events:

Photo: NDI

1. Voting accreditation booths opened on time

2. Closing of accreditation booths on time

3. Close of voting booths

4. Starting time of vote counting

5. Accurate reporting of final votes at verified time the next day

Subsequently, political corruption was stymied and the election results were accurate in terms of the sample NDI collected.  President Jonathan Goodluck was elected in a fair and clean democratic election.

The project cost around nine million dollars in total, including an independent evaluation of the funds.  A group of independent researchers, including Katrin Verclas of MobileActive, carried out the evaluation, and found that nearly all the money could be accounted as originally proposed.  These clean results have motivated other countries to utilize this system as well.  NDI is currently working with Zambia to monitor their next elections with a similar plan.

Given the high use of mobile phones and the live stream of communication possible via SMS, mobile phones present another solution to promoting democratic elections.  And with the spread of mobile satellite service around Africa, this project is scalable in other nations.

 

/by
,

E-agriculture…Let’s look at projects in the Caribbean

Radio's signage at the head office

Credit: Radio Toco

E-agriculture typifies the shift from struggling industrial economies to a knowledge-based entrepreneurial economic landscape driven by rapid technological innovation.

ICTs, which are increasingly viewed as tools that can enable farmers to work smarter and boost their returns, have functioned as a source of empowerment, boosting and building capacities, through highly efficient knowledge sharing processes.

Here are two ways in which e-agriculture is helping to transform the Caribbean’s agricultural sector.

  • AgriTalk: An initiative of the Caribbean Farmers Network (CaFAN)

Objective: To facilitate a community of knowledge network of practice for Small Farm Holders and Farm associations and stakeholders across 16 Caribbean Islands by probiding cheap network communications using innovative digital technologies (VOIP) to facilitate timely agriculture related information (market prices, information about fertilizers, crop varieties etc.)

Approach: Partner with Mobile Telecom & VOIP Providers to create a closed user group service at a low cost to members of the network.

Regional-CaFAN- VOIP (ATA Adapters)-Peer Network & Gateway-Pilot

Internet Access- Low cost Edge Service -(Data Cards) Modem and Router – US$20/month

Local Level- CUG with Local Mobile Network -(Digital or C&W) -US$5/month (Free SMS)

VOIP Gateway – At each Network Contact Point (using SMS or code)

Beneficiaries: Nearly 1 million farmers

Benefits to community: Better prices, reliable information, Ease in selling their products etc…

Driving Agency: CaFAN, Farmer Associations

Objective: Aimed at serving the community and broadcasting community programs to alleviate poverty through information and ICTs.

Radio Toco came on stream in November 1997, with UNESCO/UNDP assistance within the framework of UNESCO’s special program “Women Speaking to Women”, and has gone from strength to strength since then.

Approach: A radio station and multimedia center, offering training

Beneficiaries: Rural Community

Driving Agency: Toco Foundation with the help of volunteers

Key lessons from these two initiatives

  1. Technology is secondary to preparing and aligning people and processes
  2. Effective community participation is vital
  3. Strong leadership from village up is essential for success of any ICT4D project (e.g Agri-Talk)
  4. Leveraging ICTs is not necessarily about changing lifestyles in rural communities. In many instances, they will introduce new methods of doing the same old activities.
  5. Agricultural information is a complex process (information infrastructure—access and costs)
  6. Knowledge sharing and strategic content development will be vital

Find out more about e-agriculture projects around the globe here.

/by
, , , ,

Grad students build novel tool in fight against malaria

Photo Credit: geardiary.com

A new faction has joined in the war against malaria: graduate students. A group of students developed a malaria diagnostic tool that will be rolled out in India and Ethiopia this summer.  Called, the Lifelens project, the tool uses a micro lens on the camera of mobile phones that can ultimately test for and diagnose malaria.

Created by Harvard Business School student Cy Khormaee and UC Davis doctoral student Wilson To, the lifelens product attaches a $50 micro lens to the camera of a Windows 7 enabled smartphone.

With the camera in place, the phone can then capture high-resolution images of the cells in a drop of blood that is placed on the micro lens. Windows 7 software quickly analyzes the images, confirming the presence or absence of malaria. Once the images are analyzed, the results can be sent to public health workers and other health professionals via SMS for further assessment and data collection.

Current standard practices in malaria diagnosis involve administering a rapid diagnostic test (RDT). This method takes a blood sample, usually off of the finger of the patient, and then exposed to a cotton swab containing a solution that reacts with malaria antigens that may be in the blood. However, this method is inefficient and produces many false positives, with only a 40% accuracy rate.

Photo Credit: springwise.com

The lifelens tool acts as a powerful microscope and can easily be sterilized for further immediate usage. It is also more accurate than RDT since it detects malaria cells directly. To and Khormaee say that in the long run, the lifelens tool will be more cost effective than current RDT detection methods.

However, there are some obstacles. The lifelens tool only operates on a Windows 7 enabled smartphone. These phones cost hundreds of dollars and may be affordable in resource poor areas. Also, the lifelens tool is not the only novel technological tool in the malaria detection space. Disposable tests are already in wide use, and others are developing diagnosis technologies, including a DNA-based one that could, like Lifelens, test for malaria and other illnesses.

The lifelens project received an award in the Microsoft sponsored Imagine Cup competition that featured innovative technological tools that use Microsoft software. With this award in hand, To and Khormaee plan to roll out a testing phase for their tool in India and Ethiopia.

Virtually all deaths from malaria occur in the developing world with 90% occurring in Africa. Any advancement in malaria diagnosis is highly valued. The lifelens project is aiming to change the way infectious disease diagnosis is handled. “Malaria is just the beginning,” says To. “We’re building a platform.”

/by
, , , , ,

Army of mothers set to fight malaria in Mali

It was recently announced that an initiative called Mobiles Against Malaria will be launched in Bamako, Mali. The initiative will be executed using mothers who are community health workers in an effort to use mobile phones to prevent, diagnose and treat malaria in a more effective way than it has been.

The project is being funded by Akvo, a foundation created in 2008 that uses open source web and mobile software to attract funders to a spread of projects being done in the developing world.

CHW's at work. Photo Credit: Akvo

Mobile phones will be used by the mothers who were recruited as community health workers(CHW) to record data from neighborhoods on malaria. The CHW’s will visit each household in a particular neighborhood ready to ask pre-formulated questions.

The answers to the questions will be gathered on the mobile phones. For example, some of the questions asked may be ‘how many people live in the house’ and ‘how many people are ill’ and ‘what is the number of newborns’.

After gathering all of the necessary answers, the data will be sent via SMS to a central database located at a local hospital. It is hoped that NGO’s and local organizations will take advantage of the databases to analyze the trends and assist households in need of help. Officials hope the SMS data collection system will shed light on estimating how many insecticide-treated nets are needed in the poor areas in Bamako.

These community health workers will travel to malaria impacted areas around the capital city of Bamako to administer a revamped program. An older version was implemented using CHW’s who tested 2,796 children for malaria with a finger prick test after visiting nearly 100,000 households. That framework will be enriched by the introduction of the SMS-based frontline data collection.

The use of mothers as the CHW’s is a hallmark feature of this program. That along with using the SMS based frontline data collection sets this malaria detection program apart from other ones going on in Africa. Using mothers presents several advantages:

  • mothers are trusted in the community
  • they easily gain trust from other women from whom data is being collected
  • they can persuade women to visit hospitals using that established trust
  • they often have insider knowledge to the neighborhoods they work in
  • they ensure use of treated mosquito nets
  • they support treatment adherence

Along with attaining malaria specific data such as households using insecticide treated bednets, officials hope the program will create easier access to information on the burden. They also hope the cell phone-based application will improve patient management via a cell phone risk assessment and triaging tree, strengthen patient history documentation in the field, enable clinical communication (text, image, audio) between community health workers and clinics, and provide access to previously unrecorded health information.

The program aims to use mothers and cell phones to decrease costs of malaria detection and treatment while improving the access to treatment and treatment adherence. The program will train and utilize 50 CHW’s and 2 hospitals over the span of a year. It hopes that using mobile phones will build off of prior success.



/by

Case Studies

Global Health: Cross-Bureau Budget Analysis

The Bureau for Global Health’s (GH’s) cross-bureau budget (CBB) allocates funds to activities that...

Read more

Economic Analysis of the Conservation & Communities Project in Madagascar

Madagascar is widely recognized as the home of some of the world’s most exceptional biodiversity...

Read more

Funding the Future: Navigating Private Finance in Education

Finance is a critical input to a country’s education system, yet partner country education systems are strained...

Read more

Contact Details

  • 1156 15th Street NW
    Suite 800
    Washington, DC 20005

  • +1.202.898.4110

  • info@integrallc.com

Quick Links

Sign up for Updates

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Copyright © 2020 Integra Government Services International LLC