Phones for Health in Africa
19.02.2007

MOBILE PHONES are being harnessed to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa under a new $10-million scheme announced on Tuesday with the backing of leading companies and the U.S. government. The "Phones-for-Health" project will use software loaded on to a standard Motorola handset to allow care workers in the field to enter critical health information into a central database in real time. It will be transmitted using a standard GPRS mobile connection or, where this is not available, via an SMS channel.  more....

55% OF Swazi women overweight
19.02.2007

DESPITE chronic food shortages afflicting all parts of Swaziland, a national survey has discovered that 55 percent of Swazi women are overweight or obese. But the survey at the same time .found that throughout Swaziland, children were malnourished. "The likelihood of a woman being overweight (pre-obese) or obese increased with age: 70 percent of women 40 to 49 years of age were overweight or obese," said the recently published survey by the health ministry's Vulnerability Assessment Committee (VAC), while about one-third of women aged 30 to 39 years were classified as overweight or obese.  more....