By: Eteena Tadjiogueu
Can mobile technologies be used to monitor and control infectious diseases? “Yes” said six panelists at a mHealth Summit session I attended yesterday afternoon. In the case of malaria, HIV and TB, panelists cited specific technologies—gadgets and software—that are used to manage, monitor or control the diseases in the U.S., Thailand, Kenya, and Uganda.
One gadget that I found especially captivating is the Wisepill™, a device which monitors when patients take their medication and then collects and sends the data to a physician or health center. Jessica Haberer, MD, MS and her colleagues at the Harvard Initiative for Global Health who developed the Wisepill™ have found that real-time wireless adherence monitoring is feasible in rural, resource-limited settings like Mbarara, Uganda where their study was conducted.
Interestingly enough, in many poor and remote areas of the world one can still find a large number of cellphone users. One panelist, Dr. Richard Lester, a clinical assistant professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine, found that in Kenya, where an estimated 40 percent of the population is unemployed, over 80% of the population has access to cellphones.
Clearly, innovation in the mobile technology sector can have positive benefits for global health, but how can this innovation translate into reduced neglected tropical disease burdens? Should national governments text their residents about upcoming mass drug administration campaigns? Could local health workers send counseling information to patients who have been previously treated for an NTD to prevent a relapse? How can the NTD community tap into the growing mHealth sector and start a mNTDs trend?
