Mobile health technology for enhancing the COVID-19 response in Africa : a potential game changer?
Date
2020
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
Abstract
The WHO Africa Region is experiencing an increase in the
number of novel COVID-19 cases. As of May 20, 2020, 63,521
cases with 1,796 deaths (2.8% case fatality) have been reported
from 45 countries.1 Although these numbers are small
compared with those in United States or Europe, the WHO
recently estimated that up to 190,000 people could die of
COVID-19 in Africa if the pandemic is not controlled.2 These
projections are threatening the already overstretched health
services in Africa, where governments have been implementing
mitigating strategies to flatten epidemic curves at manageable
levels. These include education, personal hygiene practices,
social distancing, travel bans, and partial or total lockdowns.3
However, as lockdowns and social distancing measures are
currently being lifted in stages by most African countries, governments
will need to ensure that public health infrastructure
and needed resources are put in place for community surveillance
to identify cases and clusters of new infections through
active case finding, large-scale testing, and contact tracing.
Description
CITATION: Nachega, J. B. et al. 2020. Mobile health technology for enhancing the COVID-19 response in Africa : a potential game changer? American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, doi:10.4269/ajtmh.20-0506.
The original publication is available at https://www.ajtmh.org
The original publication is available at https://www.ajtmh.org
Keywords
COVID-19 (Disease) -- Prevention -- Africa, Wireless communication systems in medical care -- Africa, mHealth -- Africa, Medical care -- Africa, Communicable diseases -- Transmission -- Africa
Citation
Nachega, J. B. et al. 2020. Mobile health technology for enhancing the COVID-19 response in Africa : a potential game changer? American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, doi:10.4269/ajtmh.20-0506.