Mobile Technology Used to Fight Malaria Drug Counterfeiting

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African Social Enterprise mPedigree Networks has been running a program in Nigeria and Ghana that allows consumers to verify the authenticity of anti-malaria drugs by using mobile phone SMS technology. With the new service, patients taking a range of medication and send a free text message to get an instant response as to whether the medications are genuine.

Counterfeit medicines often contain the wrong quantity of active pharmaceutical ingredients, which can result in illness or death. The system assigns a code that is revealed by scratching off a coating on the drugs’ packaging. This code can be text messaged by the consumer or medical professional to a free SMS (short message service) number to verify the authenticity of the drug.

If the drug packaging contains a counterfeit code, the consumer will receive a message alerting them that the pack may be a fake, as well as a phone number to report the incident. Pharmaceutical safety regulators in Ghana and Nigeria are working to ensure that the concerns of users are promptly addressed.

“Counterfeit pharmaceuticals are a big problem for developing nations, particularly in Africa. It is important that we developed an African solution to an African problem, using the resources and technologies that are widely available and easy to implement,” said Bright Simons, founder, mPedigree Network. “It’s absolutely imperative that people can trust the authenticity of the drugs they are consuming, and this system will give them an easy and effective way of doing so.”

“Over the years, we have invested a huge amount of time and money in developing drugs which will protect the health of people around the world,” said Dr. Joseph Ikemefuna Odumodu, chief executive, May & Baker Nigeria, and president, West African Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association. “It’s in both our and our customers’ interest that they receive the full benefit of that investment. This system will safeguard both of us now and in the future.”

HP is providing the hosting infrastructure for the service, as well as the security and integrity systems, through its data centers in Frankfurt, Germany. mPedigree Network is providing the business process interfaces that allow pharmaceutical companies to code their products for the system and to monitor use of genuine and counterfeit drugs.

The service, which was endorsed by the West African Health Organization, is expected to be available for other medications and in more countries in the near future. All GSM mobile network operators in Ghana and Nigeria are signatories to the scheme.

“Technology plays a critical role in solving many serious health problems around the world,” said Gabriele Zedlmayer, vice president, Office of Global Social Innovation, HP. “While Nigeria and Ghana are the starting points for this program, we are working to create a scalable infrastructure to be used by other regions where counterfeit medicine is a growing issue.”

In November 2010, mPedigree won the start-up category of the Global Security Challenge in London, becoming the first organisation in the Southern Hemisphere to win the award according to the organizers, and in February 2011, mPedigree won the 2011 Netexplorateur Grand Prix at UNESCO in Paris, for combating fake medicine in Africa through texting.

Sources: HP Press Release (12-10-10); Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpedigree)
More information: mPedigree; BBC

Mobile Phone Technologies Used to Help Track Malaria Outbreaks

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On the heels of the United Nations Social Innovation Summit, HP and nonprofit organization Positive Innovation for the Next Generation (PING) are launching a collaboration to improve the quality and efficiency of disease surveillance in Botswana through mobile health monitoring technology that can enhance protection and prevention against major malaria outbreaks.

“We’re focused on addressing health and development problems by not only using technology in an innovative way, but also by creating more problem solvers in the local population. By combining our socially active core with innovation and business acumen from HP, and the scale of government organizations, we can achieve the greatest opportunity for lasting social change,” says PING operations director Katy Digovich.

Advancing the country toward its goal of malaria elimination, the initiative uses HP webOS and cloud computing technology to enable health workers to more efficiently predict, observe and minimize the harm caused by outbreaks.

According to Gabriele Zedlmayer, vice president, Office of Global Social Innovation at HP, “there is tremendous opportunity for mobile technology to transform public health services in both developing and developed markets. The full potential of applying mobile and cloud services to advance healthcare has yet to be reached, and we’re committed to applying our technology expertise to help address some of the world’s most difficult global health challenges.”

In partnership with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) and mobile network provider MASCOM, the program equips healthcare workers in Botswana with HP Palm Pre 2 smartphones to collect malaria data, notify the Ministry of Health about outbreaks and tag both data and disease surveillance information with GPS coordinates. This data will contribute to a first-ever geographic map of disease transmission in the country, enabling faster response times and better measurement of malaria cases to monitor treatment and scale up the distribution of mosquito nets.

The program’s year-long pilot phase is the largest mobile health pilot program in Botswana, running throughout the malaria season. Future programs are planned to reach additional outbreak-prone diseases in the region.

  • Data analysis in the cloud: The initiative enables healthcare workers to collect data via a webOS application on a mobile device, upload the data over a mobile network, and analyze and share the data via the cloud. Through this system, analysis now takes hours rather than weeks to complete.
  • Rapid outbreak notification: When an outbreak is detected, healthcare workers can quickly upload specific case and location information from their mobile devices in the field. Health officers in the area and members of the Ministry of Health then receive a text message alerting them of the outbreak, enabling rapid deployment of preventative measures to reduce disease transmission.
  • Higher accuracy with real-time surveys: Through the flexibility and ease of development on the webOS platform, a surveillance application enables health workers to perform real-time surveys from the field. Health workers are able to enter accurate, context-rich data through pictures, video, audio, GPS coordinates, qualitative and quantitative information about the case.

In the next phase of the program, HP and PING plan to develop a cloud-based health services package for consumers in Botswana, creating a sustainable system for delivering even more health-related information to users over mobile networks.

Advancing health monitoring

Despite progress in disease eradication, the World Health Organization reports that more than 780,000 people died from malaria-related illnesses in 2009, most of them children under the age of five. In Africa, 75 million people, or 10 percent of the population, are at risk to contract malaria.(1) Mobile technology has the potential to drastically improve malaria surveillance by speeding data collection and generating more context-aware information about outbreaks.

Health initiatives in Africa

As part of the company’s global social innovation program, HP aims to enrich society by using the breadth and scale of its technology to drive structural, systemic improvements in health access and delivery.

In addition to the collaboration with PING, HP has alliances with African social enterprise mPedigree to fight counterfeit malaria drugs through an innovative mobile phone and cloud services solution; nonprofit organization mothers2mothers to help prevent HIV transmission from mothers to infants; and the CHAI to greatly improve the speed of HIV diagnosis for infants in Kenya.

Source:  BusinessWire