How Can Cell Phones Help the Swine Flu Outbreak?

[aruljothi]

When you only have 305 million computers and 11 million hospital beds in the developing world, what technology is much more plentiful and could compensate for a shortage of doctors or remote access with limited infrastructure?

Yes, the answer is cell phones, and there are 2.2 billion of them in the developing world where it is uncommon for people to own computers. They all present an opportunity for mobile health, and especially with the current swine flu outbreak, now's more critical than ever to deliver results.

Produced out of Joel Selanikio's non-profit DataDyne.org, he says his EpiSurveyor software is now the most widely adopted open source mobile health software in the world.

MIT agreed this week with EpiSurveyor's potential and awarded him $100,000 with the Lemelson-MIT award for sustainability.

"The free EpiSurveyor software package, which can be downloaded onto handheld mobile devices, allows health workers to become fully self-sufficient in programming, designing and deploying health surveys to [nix] the need for costly consultants, paper and manual data entry."

In partnership with the World Health Organization, United Nations Foundation and Vodafone Foundation, EpiSurveyor allows for the surveillance of diseases affecting populations, the evaluation of treatments and monitoring the success of treatments in preventing outbreaks.