Africa: Innovations in healthcare

The technology is a great anti-criminal initiative as reports of counterfeit drugs can be traced to reveal if there is a surge of fake drugs in the market and ultimately discover their source – or even uncover when stolen drugs have surfaced onto the market.

The breakthrough is a very important development in the world of African health. In Africa, over 100,000 deaths are linked to the counterfeit drug trade each year; while malaria causes almost a million fatalities among under-fives in Africa.

Sproxil’s initiative continues to expand. “Since our 2010 pilot in Nigeria to protect diabetes patients from buying fake treatments, we have expanded to five operations across three continents to protect products in over 10 industries, including pharmaceuticals, beauty and personal care, and automotive parts,” says the company.

“Our award-winning solution, Mobile Product Authentication, has been recognised globally for protecting a vast array of important and life-saving drugs such as malaria treatments. To date, we have processed the most product verifications for a solution of our kind: we boast over 8.5m consumer engagements.”

Other interesting inventions are finding their way onto the African market. A new mHealth app allows Kenyans to check whether a doctor or clinic is genuine via SMS. The user receives a list of approved medics and clinics in proximity to himself or herself.

There have been a number of other SMS-based mHealth projects in Kenya, Mozambique and Uganda, which focus, for example, on reminding patients to take their medication and keep their medical appointments. This has been especially useful for HIV patients. Studies show that such SMS services have made patients more likely to follow anti-retroviral therapy.

Basic health infrastructure still needed
mHealth innovation faces a number of basic challenges in Africa, however. One is the severe shortage of health services and the paucity of drug supplies – so the basic health infrastructure which many mHealth initiatives need to get a head start, simply does not exist.

It is therefore important to stress that although mHealth is a way to get around lack of physical health services in some contexts, it can by no means function as a replacement for basic health infrastructure. Experts also point out that mHealth initiatives can be quite fragmented, and there is an urgent need to coordinate and share best practices among providers.

E-health, which basically means the deployment of health-related services through internet-based communication, is also finding a foothold in Africa.

One of the countries leading the way is Rwanda and a pioneering project unfolding in the country is TRACnet, an internet-based app that reveals data and government HIV indicators directly extrapolated from the field – information includes drug supply levels and patient load and the status of all of the HIV programmes in the country.

Meanwhile, in Uganda mTrack enables medical supplies in clinics across the country to be tracked in real time. In Zambia, SmartCare, an electronic health record system, has recently taken off. An eHealth programme in Mali, IKON, has also made headlines. Through the IKON app, rural clinics can forward scans and X-rays to specialists via the internet so that the specialists can then offer a diagnosis and advise on treatment.