African countries adopt mobile phone tool

A mobile phone application is being used by 20 sub-Saharan countries in order to improve the collection of public health data.

Kenya and Senegal are among the nations using EpiSurveyor, which is a mobile-based research application that is more efficient than the manual data collection process.

DataDyne developed the downloadable software for EpiSurveyor, with the support of the Vodafone Foundation and the UN Foundation.

The service is currently being used in an immunisation campaign in Kenya and if it is successful may be rolled out on a wider scale.

Dr Joel Selanikio, co-founder of DataDyne, recently won the Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability, which honoured his achievements in public health and international development.

Commenting on the award, Dr Mark Grabowsky, medical officer for global health at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said: "In Africa and across the globe, EpiSurveyor is enabling thousands of public health officials to have a clearer knowledge of priorities, successes, problems and the future path of public health."

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