Cellphones may be a key weapon in the war against HIV and AIDS in Africa, the head of the UNAIDS agency said.
The relatively new technology has a role to play in a continent plagued by inadequate health centers and dilapidated infrastructure, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe said.
“You can talk about different policies, about capacity building, but you can’t beat this kind of epidemic with [a] facility-based approach only,” he said.
A major mobile telephone operator in Nigeria already runs a toll-free call scheme that links callers to counselors on HIV-AIDS concerns.
“It’s a fascinating initiative,” Sidibe said. “Its advantage is that you don’t have to move from your place to a center where ... you may be stigmatized.”
“You have free communication and quality advice, which can help you take a decision,” he said.
With basic intensive training and armed with cellphones, local community or village workers could be a part of the health service delivery system, he said.
Despite the resources poured in years into Sub-Saharan Africa to combat HIV-AIDS, the region remains the world’s most heavily affected, accounting for 67 percent of HIV infections, UNAIDS’ figures showed.
“You need first to look at a community-based approach, tap on non-conventional facilities,” Sidibe said during a recent trip to Nigeria.
It was time that Africa, saddled with a myriad of economic, political and social woes, got back to basics, he said.
“I don’t think in any of our African countries we will be able to wait to have professionals, or to have enough of those people,” Sidibe said. “It is time to reinforce our capacity to use the modern technology differently.”
Africa, a continent with one of the highest numbers with access to cellphones, should take advantage of the digital revolution to reach out widely, he said.
“It’s something we need to start replicating in Africa, remember we have more mobile phones in Africa than in north America,” he said.
Nigeria has more than 70 million cellphone line subscribers: about one line for every two people.
A pilot project using cellphones is underway in Nigeria’s northern Kaduna State and southwestern Ondo State.
Village workers — who have barely been through secondary school — have been trained to identify symptoms of minor ailments.
They tour villages examining patients and use their cellphones to call up trained medical workers at a major referral center to get diagnosis and prescriptions dictated over the phone.
“Community health workers go out with a mobile phone connected to a central referral hospital, can take temperatures ... and doctors at the referral units advise on drugs to administer,” Sidibe said. “Using all these types of approaches can help us improve information systems and expand delivery by reaching the poor in the community.”
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
RSS