Africa: Using Technology to Save Lives At the Community Level

Nairobi — The extraordinarily rapid spread of mobile telephone use in Africa is nothing but remarkable. It was in Africa in 2001 that mobile phones first outnumbered fixed lines, and by the end of 2012, 70 per cent of Africa's population was expected to have a mobile phone. Communication has never been so easy and it has opened up new opportunities across the globe.

However, when it comes to using mobile technologies to understand disease trends, African Ministries of Health and their partners have not kept pace. One of the major challenges has been collecting real-time data to provide health practitioners with the information needed for them to effectively target interventions.

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