Mobile technology to help combat diabetes

MOBILE technology company Alcatel-Lucent is contributing to the mDiabetes project in Senegal, an mHealth project that aims to combat diabetes with an ambitious and innovative campaign based on mobile technology, including SMS messages and applications.

The mDiabetes program is designed to improve prevention by raising awareness among diabetic patients as well as training health professionals.

Alpin Verlet, head of Alcatel-Lucent in West and Central Africa, and Dr. Awa Marie Coll Seck, Minister of Health and Social Action of Senegal at the launching of the mDiabetes program

Senegal’s Ministry of Health and Social Action will 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 to be launched in November 2014.

Within the framework of this partnership, Alcatel-Lucent will provide the Ministry and their partners in Senegal with the MNC technological platform that 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, as well as training health professionals via cellular phones.

End users who have been identified by the National Center for Combating Diabetes will be able to directly interact with health professionals for better prevention and management of their disease.

As a specialist in IP network technologies and ultra-broadband access solutions including Cloud technologies, and considerable knowledge of the mLearning and mHealth ecosystem, Alcatel-Lucent is a valued partner in helping implement mHealth projects linked with technology.

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 World Health Organization (WHO), 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.