A bright thread in last month’s Mobile Health Expo was the use of mHealth–particularly SMS–in Africa. There are close to 400 million mobile phones in Africa, countries like South Africa are nearing 100%, and the vast majority are voice/text (but not web) capable. And their uses are many: Sproxil is using mobile text verification of IDs on drug blisterpacks to fight counterfeiting in Nigeria, partnering with Merck Santé and with the full cooperation of the Nigerian government and their regulatory agency NAFDAC. The government’s involvement will extend into messaging for health education. It is also a financial instrument; Vodafone developed a mobile money transfer system for the ‘unbanked’ that in Kenya accounts for 11% of GDP. While this will not make up for the 800,000 additional health workers needed in Africa by 2015, other mobile applications will. Thus the first-ever two-day mHealth Summit Africa, 2-3 December in Accra, Ghana. Telegraph (UK): Mobile phones offer Africa a chance to put its health first
[Yes, this is our second post on this conference…]