A research nurse in Kenya is relying on the technology of mobile phones to help pregnant Kenyan women prevent the spread of HIV from them to their children. According to a report from IPS news, mobile phones are becoming increasingly popular in Kenya, and healthcare workers are taking advantage of the fact to help HIV positive pregnant women deal with the AIDS-inducing virus. Workers use mobile phones to send those women daily reminders to take their medication, and to visit the hospital for regular checkups. Through constant observation and continued use of medication, the virus can be stopped from spreading to their offspring. However, not everybody is persistent and most people forget or are not bothered to. This is where the SMS notifications come in handy. But sometimes notifications just aren’t good enough. A lot of women don’t have enough money to make constant trips to the hospitals, and can’t afford to stop working just to go for a checkup, so while mobile phones do help to a certain extent, perhaps a little more could be done (free transport perhaps?). Either way it is a pretty good way to make use of handphones and its uses in preventing HIV will probably evolve in the future, as technology improves.
