A new machine to machine technology enabling HIV Positive expectant mothers to get results in record time to begin anti-retroviral drugs much earlier is reported to have reduced the chances of transferring the virus to the newborns from 40 percent to less than 1 percent in Mozambique.
The small, inexpensive printer incorporating SMS (short message service) wireless protocol used for mobile phone text messaging uses Telit Wireless Solutions wireless modules to connect the SMS printers to a GSM cellular gateway, which transmits the lab results wirelessly and securely to printers at the rural clinics over long distances.
The system, first piloted in Mozambique for the last six months, where nearly half of all babies born with HIV in Mozambique died before the age of two, is now set for replication across Africa and is expected to enable rural medical clinics in Africa to wirelessly receive HIV test results for expectant mothers within days of testing.
Funded by the Clinton Foundation and Mozambique’s Ministry of Health, the HIV Early Infant Diagnosis Project has already saved an estimated 20,000 babies from infection in the first six months of operations.
“There’s very little infrastructure in Africa – most of these clinics cannot be reached by car, have no mail service and no landlines,” says Nick Lidington, managing director, Sequoia Technology.
Nearly 400 clinics in Mozambique are now outfitted with the 12-volt printers for their low cost, simple operation and security.
The successful programme is now on expansion to nine other African nations including Kenya, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and Uganda.
In the 2010 WHO statistics, Mozambique had around 52,222 expectant mothers receiving ARVs. In the same year more than 42,162 infants were born to the HIV infected mothers who were already on treatment.
Sequoia Technology, an M2M solutions company with its technology partner Telit Wireless Solutions, developed the system.
“Telit was the obvious choice to partner with in this life-saving project because they have such robust, high quality modules and M2M design expertise. This proved invaluable in building the highly complex and critical gateway module software,” says Tim Clayton, wireless business manager for Sequoia.
Headquartered in the United Kingdom, Sequoia Technology Group Ltd is an independently-owned technology solutions specialist in the field of telemetry and wireless M2M modules, terminals and antennas.
Telit Wireless Solutions is a brand of Telit Communications PLC, an enabler of M2M communications worldwide providing wireless module technology, services and connectivity.
