Mobile health: Hallelujah or bah humbug? There is definitely a burgeoning mass of data from successful mHealth experiments showing it is possible to improve access to care and clinical quality while saving money. Unfortunately, little of that was presented at the conference, but one presentation by Bella Hwang from Weltel, demonstrated how an mHealth project serving HIV-infected patients in Kenya used regular text messaging to dramatically improve adherence to antiretroviral drug regimens (62% compliance vs 50% in the control group) and suppress the viral load (57% vs. 48% in the control group; the project is estimated to generate $10 million [...]

TEN BIGGEST POSITIVE AFRICA STORIES OF 2011 #5: Cell phones continue to change how Africans live. The devices have proven to be invaluable: health-care workers use cell phones to track and monitor pregnant women in rural Rwanda (where the number of maternal deaths is high) and H.I.V. patients in Kenya, and Kenya’s mobile banking system, which has been called the world’s most innovative, lets Kenyans pay bills, send remittances, purchase goods and airtime, move funds among accounts, and even take out and pay back loans for entrepreneurial ventures. [original article]

Kenya’s Startup Boom Phones like Hussein’s hold great potential to improve the way health services are delivered. One major study demonstrating as much was started five years ago by Richard Lester, a Canadian infectious-disease specialist. After arriving in Kenya for a research fellowship, noting the ubiquity of mobile phones, and recognizing that the country has only one doctor for each 6,000 citizens, Lester and his team developed a communication link with HIV-positive patients at three health centers, asking them weekly by text message whether they needed any assistance with their antiretroviral drugs (ARVs). Once 500 people were participating, Lester conducted [...]

UBC researchers win $100,000 grants to adapt cellphones to diagnose pneumonia UBC assistant clinical professor Richard Lester won for his work on WelTel, a program that contacts patients weekly via text message to remind them to follow their drug therapy and address any problems they may have. A preliminary study of 530 AIDS patients in Nairobi using the program found a marked improvement in their health: a 20 per cent reduction in their viral load. “Ninety per cent of the people attending the clinic had cellphones and we basically thought how can we use this to help patients?” said the [...]

The Lancet – WelTel Kenya1 Randomised Clinical Trial – 10 Nov 2010 Effects of a mobile phone short message service on antiretroviral treatment adherence in Kenya (WelTel Kenya1): a randomised trial Dr Richard T Lester MD, Paul Ritvo PhD, Edward J Mills PhD, Antony Kariri BSc, Sarah Karanja BSc, Michael H Chung MD, William Jack DPhil, James Habyarimana PhD, Mohsen Sadatsafavi MD, Mehdi Najafzadeh MSc, Carlo A MarraPharmD, Benson Estambale MBChB, Elizabeth Ngugi PhD, T Blake Ball PhD, Lehana Thabane PhD, Lawrence J Gelmon MD, Joshua Kimani MBChB, Marta Ackers MD, Prof Francis A Plummer MD. The Lancet, Volume 376, [...]

Nature – 15 July 2010 Developing solutions T. V. Padma Nature 466 , S16–S17 (15 July 2010) 14 July 2010 There is more to combating HIV in the developing world than providing affordable drugs. T. V. Padma looks at the innovative new strategies being employed. “Mambo?” The single Kiswahili word for “How are you?” arrives in a weekly text message from the AIDS clinic in Nairobi. From Kajiado, 200 miles away, the clinic’s patients, mostly members of pastoral Maasai communities, respond with “Sawa” (OK) or “Shida” (problem). If, after two days, the patient does not respond, a nurse follows up [...]