Africare, a non-governmental organization is working in partnership with the people in Africa to build sustainable healthy and productive communities. One of their objectives is to increase the demand and access to high quality maternal and neonatal services for women living in remote areas of Senegal. The hope is to find potential problems early and be able to make quick referrals to centers that are equipped to manage emergency obstetric care.
Africare and their partner Dimagi an organization using technology to collect data, communicate, analyze data, and develop open source software, is in the process of building a mobile mHealth system to support timely data collection by community health workers.
Dr. Nene Diallo, Director of the Office of Health, HIV &AIDS at Africare, is working to record pregnancies at an early stage and using mobile messaging so that community nurses and midwifes can facilitate access to care, identify at-risk pregnancies, and make recommendations regarding delivery by skilled birth attendants at a health facility.
Africare is also working with the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF), an international African organization headquartered in Nairobi Kenya, to use an innovative telemedicine platform to provide distance training and technical assistance to community health workers to treat and refer cases as necessary.
“Africare’s telemedicine approach allows community health workers in remote areas like the mountaintops of Kedougou to perform life-saving procedures. AMREF’s telemedicine technology is going to link community health workers located at health huts to the University Hospital Center in Dakar”, reports Dr. Diallo.
She added, “This will permit trained staff at health huts to post and use TV and ultrasound to monitor pregnant women and deliver obstetric services including emergency care. Telemedicine used for maternal health at this scale, will be a first for Senegal.”
Last July, Africare came to Washington D.C to propose their “Collaborative Community-Base Technology to Improve Maternal and Child Health in Senegal” model integrating mobile and telemedicine platforms at the “Saving Lives at Birth Conference held in Washington D.C.
“Saving Lives at Birth” a global partnership of U.S Agency for International Development, Government of Norway, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada, and the U.K’s Department for International Development selected Africare as one of three out of 53 entries nominated for “Saving Lives at Birth” Round Three and which now makes it possible for Africare to become a nominee for grant funds.
In another tech development in Africa affecting mothers and children, it has been found that despite advances in medical technology and pharmaceuticals, HIV/AIDS is still responsible for one in four maternal deaths. Fortunately antiretroviral therapy improves the health and long term survival of people living with HIV but only if high adherence is maintained.
For pregnant and postpartum women in particular, adherence can be perilously low. This results in the disease progressing, affecting their children, and the need to deal with low adherence that can also create a stronger, drug-resistant strains of HIV.
Lisa Messersmith, Associate Professor of Public Health and on the faculty at the Boston University Center for Global Health and Development, attended the July “Save Lives at Birth Conference” to propose the “WiseMama” Zambia Project. The project’s goal is to improve adherence to antiretroviral therapy and make it possible to improve the health and long-term survival of individuals afflicted with HIV.
The project plans to use Wisepill, a pill container that wirelessly monitors adherence and alerts patients via personalized text messages when doses are not taken on time. The device also sends alerts to the women’s support groups in the area who will then use the monitoring data to provide follow-up counseling and support.
The goal of the “WiseMama” Zambia Project is to test whether a wireless technology adherence tool improves antiretroviral therapy adherence in pregnant and postpartum women in Zambia and to assess cost-effectiveness of this approach.
For more information, go to www.savinglivesatbirth.net.