Wireless Technology Speeds Health Services in Rwanda

Enter Voxiva, a United States company that has built a system that lets health workers send reports by cellphone directly from the field. First deployed five years ago to track disease outbreaks in the Amazon basin, Voxiva’s system is also being used in Indonesia for avian flu reporting and in India in testing of a new drug for leishmaniasis, a disease spread by sand flies.

In Rwanda, the system started being used to track H.I.V./AIDS patients two years ago and now connects 75 percent of the country’s 340 clinics, covering a total of 32,000 patients.

“By identifying individual patients in a central database, we can now follow up on individual patients, even when they change clinics,” Dr. Nyaruhirira said. “The wonderful thing with Rwanda is that mobile phones are everywhere.”

Using mobile phones makes sense across the developing world, said Howard Zucker, assistant director general of health technology and pharmaceuticals at the World Health Organization.