Cell Phones to Help Fight Aids

HIV/AIDS has been spreading lately with a high speed and especially this concerns Africa, where conditions of life are very poor and people do not receive enough care. Nowadays every single organization tries to contribute to this issue; institutions from the hi-tech area are not an exception.

The third GSM Congress, which took place in Barcelona, gathered many people of knowledge in the area. They discussed many topics, and among other issues the one of HIV/AIDS in Africa was given a special attention.

At this congress it was decided to provide Africa with necessary resources to launch the project "Phones-for-Health". It implies a usual Motorola handset with a special software. This software enables users, mainly those that work in medical sphere or care workers to upload critical information on the disease into a centralized database. This should take place in real time. Even today some of the care workers in Africa use pen and paper to register the facts about the disease. This is because till nowadays there is a lack of fixed-line telephones and Internet coverage in Africa.

U.S. Government along with several big companies will provide support for this project. The funds to be spend on the "Phones-for-Health" project were announced on February 13th and they amount $10-million overall.

However, Africa is becoming more advanced and by now 60% of people live in areas with cell phone coverage. This index is about to rise and the GSM Association expects it to be about 85% by 2010.

The "Phones-for-Health" project is developed on the basis of a similar project, which succeeded in Rwanda. However, the current scheme is more global and covers 10 African countries.
There is also a long term plan for this project and it implies spreading it further in Africa and Asia, to give poor infra-structure territories possibility to benefit from help of more advanced countries.
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