Alcatel-Lucent is supporting the government of Senegal, represented by the Minister of Health and Social Action, the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy and local partners, by participating in the “mDiabetes” program launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) as part of the “Be Healthy, Be Mobile” initiative. Also participating in the program are ASSAD (Senegalese Association for the Assistance and Support of Diabetes Patients), the African branch of the International Diabetes Federation, the NGO UNFM, the Marc Sankalé Diabetes Center, Alcatel-Lucent, Sonatel/Orange, BUPA (global international health insurance and services company) and Sanofi.
Said program aims to combat diabetes with an innovative campaign designed to improve prevention by raising awareness among diabetic patients as well as training health professionals. The first stage, inaugurated around the fasting month of Ramadan, will be superseded with a wider-reaching initiative launching in November 2014.
The first stage, inaugurated around the fasting month of Ramadan, will be superseded with a wider-reaching initiative launching in November 2014.Alcatel-Lucent on its side will provide the Ministry of Health and their partners in Senegal with the MNC technological platform mBox as in-kind contribution to the project and will be responsible for coordinating the SaaS platform and SAP mobile services for the pilot application. This platform will enable mobile services to be used for raising awareness and providing training for people with diabetes who have been identified by the National Center for Combating Diabetes, as well as training health professionals via mobile phones.
SMS and/or voice messages (for those who can’t read) will be used to educate and raise awareness among the population, as an appointment reminder service, while also helping train health professionals and implement tools for prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment, monitoring, and so on.
SMS and voice messages will be used to educate and raise awareness among the population, as an appointment reminder service, while also helping train health professionals.For several years, Alcatel-Lucent has been actively working to promote social innovation in multi-stakeholder partnership mode to support mHealth and mLearning programs for health, which aim at providing better access to information on projects relating to health or training.
“We are convinced of the value of this project for improving the conditions for diabetes patients in Senegal and are genuinely delighted to be involved as a technological partner in contributing to the success of the mDiabetes project, which aims to improve prevention, raise awareness and combat diabetes and non-transmissible diseases in Senegal,” said Alpin Verlet, Managing Director of Alcatel-Lucent for West and Central Africa. “This is an ambitious initiative which could ultimately be replicated in other countries in the fight against diabetes or any other disease.”
The World Health Organization estimated that there will be 552 million diabetics in the world by 2030, 75% of whom will live in low-income countries where diabetes will be the seventh cause of death in the world. The WHO also believes that mHealth could significantly contribute to slowing down the increase in people with diabetes.