Lisa Campbell Salazar
Joined: Jun 14, 2002
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Country: Canada
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Phones against AIDS by Kate J!
May 26, 2009 - 06:17 PM
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You and I might use text messaging to remind our roommate to pick up toilet paper on the way home from work, but around sub-Saharan Africa, mobile phones are taking on a new role as tools against the AIDS pandemic that is ravaging the continent.
In recent years, Africa’s internet infrastructure hasn’t kept pace with the continent’s booming growth in cell phone access. Some estimates in South Africa suggest that 74 percent of youth use mobile phones on a regular basis, whereas only 6 percent access the internet to a similar degree. This level of coverage has prompted AIDS workers to adopt mobile phones as a tool to both prevent and treat the virus. One possibility for using mobile phones against AIDS is helping people living with the virus to stick to strict treatment regimes and to access medical advice without traveling to a clinic. This is especially relevant in a region with large rural populations and limited health infrastructure.
A group at University of Nairobi clinics has been using a cell phone-based program to check in with their clients on anti-retroviral treatment (ART) each week. Patients receive a text message asking how they’re doing, and then health practitioners react to their responses to give the best care. During post-election violence in Kenya in January 2008, the team used text messages to make sure that patients were able to stick to their treatment regimes and avoid drug resistance from going off ART medication.
Click here to read the rest!
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