Mobilium Smart Health app launched

Image © okolaa via Fotolia.com

With the direct support and guidance of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and malaria, the app enables consumers to not only educate themselves around these diseases, but to identify symptoms, high risk areas as well as precautionary measures when travelling into those areas in Africa.

The app is focused on providing an accurate baseline information resource on HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria as well as invaluable knowledge on a number of ancillary topics such as injection safety.

The app is available as a free download to African mobile subscribers/consumers and is aimed at enhancing the health, health maintenance, health behaviours and ultimately the future health of individuals and their communities across the continent. It will also be factory embedded on all new Samsung smartphones and tablet devices distributed in Africa going forward.

Future releases

Future releases will include information on nutrition and Prenatal/Postnatal mother and new born care. The application also incorporates a mobile web based symptom checker - the Isabel Symptom Checker app, which is listed in the NHS Choices Health Apps Library of safe and trusted apps (reviewed by the NHS).

"Samsung has a distribution channel throughout Africa to carry a message and information and is the arsenal to combat these diseases," says George Ferreira, VP and COO of Samsung Electronics Africa. "We are committed to using our technology to impact the lives of our African consumers positively but we cannot do it alone - which is where our 'Count Me In' campaign comes in.

Count Me In campaign

"Information is digested in many ways by different people and we are calling on you to help us build a ground-breaking smart health solution with real impact," adds Ferreira. "Together with Mobilium we can provide the platform, but require input from those on the ground, those dealing with this everyday - to really create a solution with collaborative effect across the continent."

As such, Mobilium and Samsung Africa are calling on all doctors - in the field, dealing with these diseases on a daily basis to give them input on what information is going to help and what is going to change lives. They are also calling all the educators on the ground - when it comes to crippling diseases, what is missing from your curriculum and can Samsung fix this? For photographers to capture and share a story about the fight, the success, the pain and the victory. For filmmakers to build a library of education, to inform, to teach - because for most consumers in Africa, a change in habit could mean the difference between life and death. There is a need for animators to speak to our youngest generation because an early start is vital. A request for copywriters to speak to the people, to craft a message that will help them last a lifetime and a call for designers to craft campaigns, to build the message that Samsung can take out to our continent.

Feedback, suggestions

Through an in-app reply form added into the Smart Health application, interested parties across Africa can submit suggestions, observations, comments and feedback on how AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria are being fought in the areas and regions in which they live.

"We call on you to help us build a smart health solution, as this collaborative effort across the continent will help contribute to making a difference," adds Ferreira.

Global Fund ambassador, Charlize Theron recently summed it up: "This is the moment that we can maybe turn back and look at our children and say - there was a time...there was a moment that came along where we all got together as countries. We all got together as people from all different walks of life. And we joined together and we changed the course of history. That moment is not next week, or next year, or in five years. That moment is right now. "

"Let's be the generation that combats AIDS, TB and malaria in Africa, because we count and we are counting on you to help us make a difference," concludes Ferreira.