On June 6^th, Hewlett Packard (HP) announced it will collaborate with a non-profit organization in Botswana to provide technology to monitor and treat malaria outbreaks. HP announced it will begin a yearlong clinical trial that will equip medical professionals in Botswana with Palm Pre 2 smartphones designed to collect information on malaria outbreaks.

HP will supply the technology to the non-profit group Positive Innovation for the Next Generation (PING) who will train health workers to collect the data on malaria outbreaks. The data will be collected and stored through an application on the smartphones provided. The application can store photos, videos, audio files as well as GPS information which can be used to generate a geographic map of the areas affected by outbreaks, which has never before been done in Botswana.

The program hopes to increase the rates of mosquito net distribution and provide advanced warnings to regions at risk of an outbreak. Within a day, health workers can achieve results that would normally takes weeks to produce.

Malaria is one of the most widespread infectious diseases, and according to the World Health Organization (WHO), takes nearly one million lives every year, mostly in Africa. WHO has predicted as much as 10% of the African population is under the threat of malaria. Therefore, controlling outbreaks and being able to predict devastating malaria epidemics is crucial to alleviating its burden.

What’s also noteworthy here is that HP is plunging into the mobile health monitoring market, one example of HP’s plans to contribute to global healthcare. Instead of putting money into pockets, HP is aiming to contribute technology and other innovative solutions to tackle challenges that are hindering healthcare around the world. This shouldn’t surprise anyone however, since HP was one of the founding members of the mHealth alliance.

This program indicates the rising importance of mobile health technology as a key player in tackling health burdens in developing countries. Using mobile technologies, whether to collect data from isolated populations or to monitor disease prevalence presents an avenue for NGO’s and governments to reduce health service costs and increase accessibility. HP hopes to scale up this program to all of Africa, contingent upon success in Botswana.

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