SMS for Life Uses Mobile Phones to Increase Access to Essential Antimalaria Medications

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SMS for Life harnesses everyday technology to improve access to essential malaria medicines in rural areas of developing countries. It uses a combination of mobile phones, SMS messages and electronic mapping technology to track weekly stock levels at public health facilities in order to:

  • Eliminate stock-outs
  • Increase access to essential medicines
  • Reduce the number of deaths from malaria

SMS for Life is an innovative public-private partnership led by Novartis and supported by the Tanzanian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, IBM, Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Vodacom and Vodafone. The project comes under the umbrella of the global Roll Back Malaria Partnership.

Sonia Shah: Three Reasons We Still Haven’t Gotten Rid of Malaria

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Sonia Shah is an American investigative journalist and author noted for her articles on corporate power—especially with respect to agriculture, oil and pharmaceutical industries—and on gender equality with specific reference to issues that affect developing countries.

Her recent book The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years , traces the complex history of malaria and how it is intertwined with geography, war, technology, and industry.

Her TED Talk, below:

Take Action to Stop Counterfeit Malaria Drugs

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This campaign was launched by the Dutch Malaria Foundation on World Malaria Day 2013:

” If one out of three doses of anti-malaria drugs on the African market are fake or substandard, how can we expect to reduce the number of children dying from this terrible disease? Good drugs save lives. Fake drugs kill.

On behalf of millions of people that run this unacceptable risk every day, we say thank you.

–Dutch Malaria Foundation”

More information: FakeDrugsKill.org

Malaria Life Cycle

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The three parts of the malaria life cycle are known as the exo-erythrocytic cycle, the erythrocytic cycle and the sporogonic cycle. The first two of these take place in the human (or other mammal) host, while the third occurs in the mosquito vector.

Blood Smear Technique

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Blood films are made by placing a drop of blood on one end of a slide, and using a spreader slide to disperse the blood over the slide’s length. The aim is to get a region where the cells are spaced far enough apart to be counted and differentiated.

The slide is left to air dry, after which the blood is fixed to the slide by immersing it briefly in methanol. The fixative is essential for good staining and presentation of cellular detail. After fixation, the slide is stained to distinguish the cells from each other.

Source: Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_film)