South Africa Texting Health Care

South Africa is set to use mobile technology to try and manage part of its HIV and AIDS problem (BBC). Free text messages sent out by Project Masiluleke will encourage people to be tested and treated.

The project will be sending out one million free messages a day to the population. The use of the technology to manage this health project shows how embedded mobile phones are in South African culture. Many countries do not have an established hardwired infrastructure and are looking to the mobile network as means of mass communication. For countries with a growing population this can be crucial as the South African project demonstrates.

Previously other media, such as radio, would have been used for such work but the South African project demonstrates the importance of considering all channels for outreach.

With mobile devices increasingly offering access to the Internet via the mobile network then the opportunity to use them for delivering vital services such as medical services information to remote parts or areas with poor infrastructure becomes very important. The United Nations has already published research that suggests these devices might be the best way of bridging the global digital divide.

Of course Internet enabled phones are still at the more expensive end of the mobile infrastructure but they are becoming increasingly common and with 3G networks being established worldwide an affordable usable mobile Internet is fast becoming a reality.