Improving Malaria Data Collection With Smartphones

How important can technology be in a country like Uganda? According to this Computerworld article, data that used to take months is now being provided instantly, courtesy of just nine smartphones, helping make an immediate difference in the country's fight against the spread of malaria.

In Uganda, where the disease is occurring in 95 percent of the country, one of the keys to fighting the disease is collecting data on it, so you know where it's most prevalent and thus where to devote the most resources. Data collection is especially difficult in the more rural areas. A malaria research project, the Uganda Malaria Surveillance Project (UMSP), began tracking individual cases back in 2006, but it experienced technology issues: a slow and difficult-to-use database, case data being transferred on paper by couriers, and none of the nine rural areas where the data collection took place had Internet connections.

It took until this past March for help to start arriving, courtesy of Josh Mailman, director of technical operations at the Global Health Research Foundation (GHRF). When he brought a new server and database to project headquarters in Kampala, the upgrades revealed the weakness in using couriers, which took too long and cost too much. After multiple possible solutions were rejected, he realized smartphones would be a great fit, with the help of a product he'd been using himself.

LogMeIn Rescue provides remote access to computers from a smartphone. For UMSP, the application allows people at headquarters in Kampala to get data from people in the field, and do so immediately and securely. And once Mailman contacted LogMeIn and let them know about the program, the company provided free software and services for the UMSP workers. Palm Inc. chipped in with five Treo phones and Mailman got four more smartphones via auction.

Using one smartphone per data collection site, what would normally cost almost $2,200 per month for couriers was reduced to $45 a month. And according to Dr. Erica Weirich, founder and director of GHRF, the technology improvements are making a difference:

"Doctors and researchers can now see what is happening quickly, and spend more time preventing and healing the disease. Having data back so rapidly allows you to try new things and see if they are working, which is very powerful."

Photo courtesy of Toshihiro Horii, via Wikimedia Commons