Yrys
Army.ca Veteran
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Texting disease away
Alerta DISAMAR is helping prevent
the spread of diseases like Malaria
A mobile phone based health project is helping the Peruvian military to keep disease at bay.
The initiative, dubbed Alerta DISAMAR, has allowed doctors in the navy to report disease
outbreaks and ask for help with treatment. The scheme was set up following the deaths of
two Peruvian sailors in 2001 from Malaria and is part of wider mHealth project by the United
Nations-Vodafone Foundation.
Since it was set up in 2003 it has provided invaluable information for epidemiologists and
enabled them to track the spread of diseases. It is also a useful way of gathering statistics
on disease for health planning. To date, over 80,000 cases have been reported - everything
from snake bites to yellow fever.
Epidemic alert
The fatalities in 2001 spurred the navy into searching for technology to help them prevent
further deaths. Eight years on, they now have they have a system for tracking disease o
utbreaks, even in remote areas.
The US navy helped establish the product and a firm called Voxiva developed the technical
aspects, under advice from Ernesto Gozzer, a doctor who specialises in public health. He
spoke to BBC World Service's technology programme, Digital Planet about the success of
the project so far.
"This project provides the Peruvian navy with a tool to improve the surveillance and facilities
that they run," he said. "If you are a medical doctor or a nurse working in a health facility
far away and you have a suspect case of Ebola, what you do is call into a toll free number,
enter your personal identification number and then your password. "The system will then ask
you what you want to do. "You say you want to send a report and the system will ask you
what disease you want to report. "You will enter the code of that particular disease and then
the system will ask you specific data like the age, the gender and how many days ago did
symptoms start. "Once you send the case, the report goes to a database that can be seen
online by a specialist," he added.
Monitoring trends
The mobile project is a way of alerting doctors ahead of an epidemic, so that medical provision
can be put in place early. Crucially, medical problems and entire disease outbreaks are flagged
up in real time and the Peruvian navy says that this is what saves lives.
"The system also triggers a notification by SMS, so the person will get the notification, even if
that doctor is at the beach, on vacation or out of the office," said Dr Gozzer. "That way, we can
get the information from the source in real time and we can help the people who are dealing with
the problem in the field. "Health officials will also have a database and can monitor the trends of
the diseases and identify potential outbreaks and also have more information to do the planning,"
he added.
Medicine reminders
Alerta Disamar is one of many projects from around the world described in a recently released report on
mobile phone technology in health. The report, called 'mHealth for Development' was jointly published by
the United Nations Foundation and the Vodafone Foundation.
This partnership between the two has been running for four years and there are more than 50 mHealth
programmes around the world, showing the benefits that mobile technology can bring to healthcare
provision.
In South Africa for example, the SIMpill project integrated a sensor-equipped medicine bottle with a SIM
card, ensuring that healthcare workers were advised if patients were not taking their tuberculosis
medicine. The percentage of people keeping up with their medicine rose from 22% to 90%.
Another project called the Masiluleke SMS message campaign, sent millions of free texts to encourage
people to be tested for HIV and Aids, this resulted in a huge rise in numbers visiting health clinics.
Alerta DISAMAR is helping prevent
the spread of diseases like Malaria
A mobile phone based health project is helping the Peruvian military to keep disease at bay.
The initiative, dubbed Alerta DISAMAR, has allowed doctors in the navy to report disease
outbreaks and ask for help with treatment. The scheme was set up following the deaths of
two Peruvian sailors in 2001 from Malaria and is part of wider mHealth project by the United
Nations-Vodafone Foundation.
Since it was set up in 2003 it has provided invaluable information for epidemiologists and
enabled them to track the spread of diseases. It is also a useful way of gathering statistics
on disease for health planning. To date, over 80,000 cases have been reported - everything
from snake bites to yellow fever.
Epidemic alert
The fatalities in 2001 spurred the navy into searching for technology to help them prevent
further deaths. Eight years on, they now have they have a system for tracking disease o
utbreaks, even in remote areas.
The US navy helped establish the product and a firm called Voxiva developed the technical
aspects, under advice from Ernesto Gozzer, a doctor who specialises in public health. He
spoke to BBC World Service's technology programme, Digital Planet about the success of
the project so far.
"This project provides the Peruvian navy with a tool to improve the surveillance and facilities
that they run," he said. "If you are a medical doctor or a nurse working in a health facility
far away and you have a suspect case of Ebola, what you do is call into a toll free number,
enter your personal identification number and then your password. "The system will then ask
you what you want to do. "You say you want to send a report and the system will ask you
what disease you want to report. "You will enter the code of that particular disease and then
the system will ask you specific data like the age, the gender and how many days ago did
symptoms start. "Once you send the case, the report goes to a database that can be seen
online by a specialist," he added.
Monitoring trends
The mobile project is a way of alerting doctors ahead of an epidemic, so that medical provision
can be put in place early. Crucially, medical problems and entire disease outbreaks are flagged
up in real time and the Peruvian navy says that this is what saves lives.
"The system also triggers a notification by SMS, so the person will get the notification, even if
that doctor is at the beach, on vacation or out of the office," said Dr Gozzer. "That way, we can
get the information from the source in real time and we can help the people who are dealing with
the problem in the field. "Health officials will also have a database and can monitor the trends of
the diseases and identify potential outbreaks and also have more information to do the planning,"
he added.
Medicine reminders
Alerta Disamar is one of many projects from around the world described in a recently released report on
mobile phone technology in health. The report, called 'mHealth for Development' was jointly published by
the United Nations Foundation and the Vodafone Foundation.
This partnership between the two has been running for four years and there are more than 50 mHealth
programmes around the world, showing the benefits that mobile technology can bring to healthcare
provision.
In South Africa for example, the SIMpill project integrated a sensor-equipped medicine bottle with a SIM
card, ensuring that healthcare workers were advised if patients were not taking their tuberculosis
medicine. The percentage of people keeping up with their medicine rose from 22% to 90%.
Another project called the Masiluleke SMS message campaign, sent millions of free texts to encourage
people to be tested for HIV and Aids, this resulted in a huge rise in numbers visiting health clinics.
