Want to See #Mobile #Health Success – Look to #Africa #mHealth

I’ve said it before – Africa like many of the under developed countries is exploding with great use cases for mHealth. This piece: Kenya Has Mobile Health App Fever tracks the explosion of #mHealth.
Promoted and supported by the Kenyan Medical Association and Shimba Technologies the latest release MedAfrica offer ready access to medical information and verifying clinicians in the field and even a tool to verify the authenticity of drugs.

With over 50% of banking done by mobile phone in Kenya they are clearly adopting the platform in large numbers (Kenya is rich in mobile phones, with 25 million subscribers; Africa has more than 600 million of them). Applying #mHealth to the slew of health problems is exciting and rewarding. The size of and range of health challenges is daunting:

Many Kenyans have serious health problems; for example, according to the World Health Organization, more than 30 percent of children under age five show stunted growth. At present, only 7,000 doctors serve a nation of 40 million people. 

All this out of a company that was founded by Stephen Kyalo and Keziah Mumo, with $100,000 in seed money from a European VC

Seen here Steve Mutinda Kyalo

And its not just Kenya:

Mobile health platforms are making a strong showing in other parts of Africa, too. In South Africa, efforts include platforms that give HIV-infected patients automated ways to receive health information and reminders about upcoming doctor visits. In Johannesburg, 10,000 people infected with HIV have taken on these SMS-based alerts, resulting in big declines in missed appointments.
In Ghana and Liberia, a group called Africa Aid is experiencing strong success with MDNet, a system that allows users to call or text doctors for free. Since its founding in 2008, 1,900 physicians in Ghana have logged more than a million calls to patients, the group says.

Having real impact with that funding – awesome

‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika‘

You can take the boy out of Africa, but you can’t take Africa out of the boy