Cloud Based Technology Stops Drug Counterfeiters and Malaria
Cloud based technologies have been implemented in two new initiatives to help improve health in Africa, a mobile phone based system to collect malaria data in Botswana, and a counterfeit medicine detection service in Ghana and Nigeria.
The malaria data collection service is run by a Botswana-based nonprofit, Positive Innovation for the New Generation (PING). There a year-long pilot program is giving health care workers smartphones to collect malaria data, notify the Ministry of Health about outbreaks, and tag data and disease surveillance information with a location coordinate. The data is expected to contribute to a geographic map of disease transmission in the country, in order to improve health agency responses, reports The Huffington Post.
In Ghana and Nigeria, partnering with mPedigree Network, they have developed a free service that sends text messages to patients to verify the authenticity of their medication.
Both programs are partnered with HP.
Says HP spokesperson, Gabi Zedlmayer, Vice President of HP’s Office of Global Social Innovation, “We’re committed to using our problem-solving expertise to provide innovative solutions to social issues affecting these regions. By applying the same strategic thinking that makes HP a successful business, we believe we can both ‘do well’ and ‘do good.’”