Alcatel-Lucent is supporting the Senegalese government,
represented by the Minister of Health and Social Action, the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy and local partners, by participating in the “mDiabetes” program launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) as part of the “Be Healthy, Be
Mobile” initiative. The mDiabetes project in Senegal is one of the larger mHealth projects Alcatel-Lucent is involved in. It aims at combating diabetes with an ambitious and innovative
campaign based on mobile technology, designed to improve
prevention by raising awareness among diabetic patients as well
as training health professionals. SMS messages as well as applications will be used as tools in the campaign. “Senegal is ready for this mDiabetes project which is in a way a natural extension of the eDiabetes program developed by UNFM. Since 2009, it has helped to establish strong ties of cooperation between France and Senegal around diabetes and new technologies,” said Dr. Kleinebreil, Vice-President of the UNFM (Université Numérique Francophone Mondiale – a NGO
specialized in using ICTs for education in Africa). This project is a multiple partnership involving many major stakeholders such as
the Senegalese government (Ministry of Health and Ministry of Communication), ITU (International Telecommunications Union), the WHO (World Health Organization), ASSAD (Senegalese
Association for the Assistance and Support of Diabetes Patients), the African branch of the International
Diabetes Federation, the NGO UNFM, the Marc Sankalé Diabetes
Center, Alcatel-Lucent, Sonatel/Orange, BUPA (global
international health insurance and services company), and Sanofi. The Minister of Health and Social Action of Senegal, Dr. Awa Marie Coll Seck, announced during this ceremony that “Mobile phones offer potential that can be used for driving messages that promote health. Other mHealth projects around the globle have proven the effectiveness of using cell phones
for messages about health”. In order to overcome illiteracy and to make the initiative more effective, the Minister of Health and Social Action is planning to create voice messages that offer advice to people with diabetes. This initiative, which is inaugurated around the fasting month of Ramadan, is the first
stage of the project in Senegal, with a larger and wider-reaching
initiative which will be launched in November 2014. Within the framework of this partnership, Alcatel-Lucent will provide the Ministry of Health and their partners in Senegal with the MNC technological platform mBox as in-kind contribution to the
project and will be responsible for coordinating the SaaS platform
(software services) and SAP mobileservices for the pilot
application of “mDiabetes”. This platform will enable mobile
services like SMS messages or other applications for widely
distributing messages to be used for raising awareness and providing training for people with diabetes who have been
identified by the National Center for Combating Diabetes, as well
as training health professionals via cellular phones. The aim is to
help implement strategies for preventing and combating
diabetes and non-communicable diseases. For the end user, i.e.
the person suffering from diabetes, it is an opportunity to
directly interact with health professionals for better prevention and management of their disease. For several years, AlcatelLucent has been actively working to promote social
innovation in multi-stakeholder partnership mode to support
mHealth and mLearning programs for health, which aim at
providing better access to information on projects relating to
health or training. These partnerships are built with companies
from the private sector, governments, NGOs, international
organizations and development banks, foundations and social
entrepreneurs and are key to scaling mHealth “We are convinced
of the value of this project for improving the conditions for diabetes patients in Senegal and are genuinely delighted to be
involved as a technological partner in contributing to the success
of the mDiabetes project, which aims to improve prevention,
raise awareness and combat diabetes and non-transmissible
diseases in Senegal. This is an ambitious initiative which could
ultimately be replicated in other countries in the fight against
diabetes or any other disease,” said Alpin Verlet, Managing
Director of Alcatel-Lucent for West and Central Africa. Source:
CIO East Africa.
