Mobile phones may be a key weapon in the war against HIV and AIDS in Africa, says the UNAIDS chief.
   
The relatively new technology has a role to play in a continent plagued by inadequate health centres and dilapidated infrastructure, said Michel Sidibe, the executive director of the United Nations AIDS agency.
   
"You can talk about different policies, about capacity building, but you can't beat this kind of epidemic with facility-based approach only," he added.
  

Toll-free call

A major mobile telephone operator in Nigeria already runs a toll-free call scheme that links callers to counsellors on HIV-AIDS concerns.
   
"It's a fascinating initiative. Its advantage is that you don't have to move from your place to a centre where... you may be stigmatised " said Sidibe. "You have free communication and quality advice, which can help you take a decision."
   
With basic intensive training and armed with mobile phones, local community or village workers could be a part of the health service delivery system, he said.

Back to basics   
For despite the resources poured in years into Sub-Saharan Africa to combat HIV-AIDS, the region remains the world's most heavily affected, accounting for 67 percent of HIV infections, according to UNAIDS' own figures.
       
It was time that Africa, saddled with a myriad of economic, political and social woes, got back to basics, he argued.
   
"I don't think in any of our African countries we will be able to wait to have professionals, or to have enough of those people. It is time to reinforce our capacity to use the modern technology differently," he said.
   
Africa, a continent with one of the highest numbers with access to cellular phones, should take advantage of the digital revolution to reach out widely, he said.
   
Nigeria has more than 70 million cellphone line subscribers: about one line for every two people.

Pilot project   

A pilot project using cellphones is underway in the Nigeria's northern Kaduna State and southwestern Ondo State.
   
Village workers - who have barely been through secondary school - have been trained to identify symptoms of minor ailments.
   
They tour villages examining patients and use their mobile phones to call up trained medical workers at a major referral centre to get diagnosis and prescriptions dictated over the phone.
   
Despite prevention measures, which he said had helped avert 400,000 new infections in the past eight years on the continent, sub-Saharan Africa had the highest number of new infections in 2008. The rate runs at 71 percent according to UNAIDS.
   
Sidibe said he visited Nigeria and South Africa because the two economic giants account for more than 50 percent of all HIV cases in Africa.
 

Source: AFP