Mobile Health Services in Africa: A New Cooperation Opportunity for Korea

Abstract

Rwanda, the landlocked country in East Africa well-known for its tragic history, is now being mentioned as a huge success example of basic-level mobile health services for pregnant women and their children, called RapidSMS, introduced by UNICEF to the Ministry of Health of Rwanda in 2009. The service enables community healthcare workers who support maternity health in local areas throughout Rwanda to use a simple SMS (short message service) to collect pregnant women's medi-cal records for all healthcare workers to share, and to receive reminders for when expectant women are due for check-ups. The very simple m-health (mobile health) project tracks changes during the 1,000 days from a child's conception and up to two years of age, the most critical time for maternal and child health. It has contributed to the reduction of maternal mortality from 750 per 100,000 live births in 2005 by one third of this in 2014-2015, according to the Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey. This is just one case how mobile technology is changing the healthcare environment in Africa.