Fighting HIV/AIDS with Mobile Phones

For some Nigerians, the United Nations AIDS (Unaids) programme was waving the fear flag when it reported that Nigeria records at least 1,000 new HIV infections every day.
To them, the purpose of the report was to discourage unprotected sexual behaviour insisting that the United Nations agency’s claim was alarmist and propaganda that lacks the credibility of verifiable data.
But the these group of Nigerians may be ignorant as figures show that worldwide, over 33 million people are living with HIV/AIDS and 25 million people have died from the illnesses associated with AIDS since 1981.
It is estimated that over a third of those infected do not know their HIV status.
Over half of the new HIV infections worldwide are in young people under the age of 25.
The figure is scary and a clear and present danger. It means that in about 410 years from now every Nigeria would have the virus if nothing urgent is done to stem the spread.
Nodding in agreement, Prof. John Idoko, director-general, National Agency for AIDS Control (Naca) said that “new infections in the country are between 370,000 and 380,000 annually. If you divide the figures by 350 days, it will be within that range”
According to Unaids, there is a growing demand for access to treatment and prevention services in Nigeria, which can only be met by strengthening the current partnership between global, national and local partners.
Unaids may be right but the first logical thing to do is force policy makers to look for inventive ways of educating people about the virus.
For instance, the mobile phone technology, whose rapid growth has provided an avenue that could potentially reach millions of Nigerians, is a handy tool.
The number of number of mobile subscribers reached 4.6 billion people in 2009 and the figure is expected to rise to more than 5 billion this year.
In Nigeria, there are over 70 million mobile phone lines meaning that if well handled, mobile phones could become key weapon in war on HIV/AIDS.
Hamadoun Toure, ITU secretary-general said in "good examples include sending reminder messages to patient's phones when they have a medical appointment, or need a pre-natal check-up”
"Or using SMS messages to deliver instructions on when and how to take complex medication such as anti-retrovirals or vaccines," he said, adding that such uses can save millions of dollars and lives”.
Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) should also be encouraged to use bulk short message service (SMS) platform for HIV/AIDS education.
This is because knowledge levels about the dread disease are still very low.
AIDS is real and the key to preventing and managing the spread is education.