Africans discuss health via mobile phone

Mobile phone operators, health professionals and ministers are meeting in Cape Town to discuss what health services can be provided on cellphones. But they will also look at concerns over patient confidentiality.

Everyone agrees that health will be the next big thing on African mobiles.

Experts say there is one mobile phone for every two Africans. And in some cities on the continent there are more active cellphone numbers per household than there are people living there.

According to the World Health Organisation, about 40 African countries are already using mobile networks for healthcare provision.

This ranges from providing a free emergency number to sending SMSes to remind patients to take their medicine or attend clinics.

Under one pilot scheme in Tanzania nurses ring one another when they are short of malaria drugs and stocks are moved according to patient demand.

In the future, mobile health is likely to extend to telemedicine whereby, for example, diabetics send their sugar counts by cellphone to a central computer.

But for governments, there are regulatory concerns.

At the three-day Mobile Health Summit in Cape Town, South African Deputy Communications Minister Obed Bapela told RFI that the promised mobile health revolution inspires both enthusiasm and caution

The operators claim they want a regulatory framework to give them parameters in which to operate. But at the moment, the mobile health revolution is so young that it is unclear who is going to write the rules.