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The Botswana Project: Using Cell Phones to Combat HIV/AIDS
The Basics:
The Botswana Project is a system designed to assist HIV positive youth with taking their antiretroviral medication and to strengthen the doctor-patient relationship by increasing communication. Our system also provides incentives and rewards for patients who communicate well. We are working with the Botswana Ministry of Health, the University of Botswana, Mascom (the biggest network service provider in Botswana), the Botswana Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS and doctors at Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone. We are looking for some additional funds to purchase cell phones for patients that dont already have them. We have the ability to get cell phones at a discount in a bulk package from Nokia. The SMS service we provide will be available to 125,000 HIV positive patients throughout the country, 10% of which are estimated to not have their own phones. We are looking to raise $7,500 in order to purchase about 12,500 cell phones for the scale up of our project. Any donation no matter how small will help make a difference. If you would like to know more about the project please read over the details below. The Details: The Problem: Botswana is one of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa most severely impacted by the HIV/AIDS epidemic; the estimated prevalence of HIV in Botswana’s population ages 14-49 is listed as 33%. The government of Botswana has responded to these devastating statistics by making treatment for HIV/AIDS available to all citizens who qualify. Although HIV is impossible to cure antiretroviral drugs (known as ARVs) enable patients to live longer and healthier lives. However in order for patients to receive these benefits and to avoid the evolution of drug resistance they must have strict adherence to their medication. Adherence is defined as following a doctors exact directions. Patients are told that they must take their medication at the same time every day for the rest of their lives. In addition some patients have to take medication for oppurtunistic infections, for example TB, which can make the number of pills a person has to take in one day very high. In a study in Botswana conducted in 2006 researchers found that the main reason for not taking medication that was provided was that people forgot. In fact in other studies conducted in most countries (including the United States) forgetfulness is the number one reason for missing a dosage of medication when cost of drugs are not an issue.To further complicate the situation the Batswana people are known for their politeness and many doctors practicing in clinics have expressed frustration that this politeness leads to patients not asking questions when they do not understand something and not confiding in the doctors when they are having a problem with their medication such as side effects. One Solution: Our project intends to address the issue of adherence and the issue of increasing communication between doctors and patients. Our concept is relatively simple, a computer server sends out text messages to patient’s cell phones to remind them to take their individual daily pills, refill their prescriptions and attend their doctor appointments. Patients respond to the individual pill reminders to either confirm that they have taken their medication or if they were unable to take it then they identify the reason they did not. Patients who respond to their texts 95% or more of the time will be awarded a small prize every month (such as airtime) and entered into monthly drawings to win larger prizes such as new cell phones or gift certificates.. Patients are encouraged and rewarded for their honesty (we will correlate their responses with their monthly viral loads to get an over all sense of how much patients tell the truth). Patient privacy in this project is of the utmost importance because of the stigma against HIV-positive individuals that is often rampant in parts of Southern Africa. The website will be password encrypted and all patients will be referred to by a numerical ID in order to protect their identity. Patients will also have the option to program their own reminder texts when they register for the service. Instead of a standard reminder a patient could select to have a reminder that says a phrase of their choice if they are afraid of someone else to which they have not disclosed their status gaining access to their cell phone. The standard reminder messages themselves will be varied and will include wise quotes, facts, horoscopes and jokes to make them more enjoyable for patients to read. Our system records and stores all the data. This way doctors can see the exact reasons why patients are missing their medication and also see exactly how much medication is being missed. This will make interference with a patient having problems with their medication not only more timely but more specific to a patient’s particular problems. Patients can text into the server number to report problems or doubts about taking their medication and we have a 24 hour helpline that patients can call for free at any time. In Botswana cell phones are very widespread and network coverage is very reliable at 85% and growing rapidly, even expanding into Botswana’s infamous desert the Khalahari. However, for those patients that do not have cell phones we are planning to provide them free of cost. Another aspect of the cell phone culture in Botswana that makes this system feasible is that everything is prepaid. This means that patients will not have to worry about paying their monthly cell phone bill to keep their number working. One never has to pay to receive and incoming text or call.We plan to work closely with both doctors and patients to tailor this system exactly to suit their needs so that it is as beneficial to them as possible. Our Project Team: This project targets HIV-positive young people. These are the people identified to have by far the biggest problems with adherence and doctor communication. One of the real strengths behind this project is that most of the people working on it are young themselves. Our project is co-headed by Katy Digovich, age 24, a American who recently graduated from Princeton University, majored in Biology and was awarded a Compton Mentor Fellowship which was used to fund the start up of this project. Our other project co-head is Lesedi Bewlay, age 25, a Motswana who graduated from Indiana University and majored in Computer Science.In fact all of the people designing and implementing this project, besides the project advisors, are under the age of 26. The project team is made up of five Americans and five Batswana. Most of us are recent graduates and the rest of us are about a year out of college. Our majors include: biology, public health, sociology, computer science, engineering and business marketing. Currently everyone is working for free. Our project advisors, although not under 26 years of age, are all very experienced in their fields. They a -Dr Harriet Okatch: A Motswana Professor at the University of Botswana who works on drug resistant HIV. -Dr. Marc Fiuczynski: A Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University whose research span several areas of communication including cell phones and SMS. -Dr. Ava Avalos: A doctor at Princess Marina Hospital who works with HIV-positive patients in the failure clinic at the IDCC. She is also a Ministry of Health official. -Dr. Mosupele Mosupele: A Motswana doctor that works at Princess Marina with the title of Adherence Coordinator. -Dr. David Green: A South African doctor who independently came up with a project very similar to ours. It is a compliance service for TB positive patients that utilizes SMS technology. -Dr. Diane Dickenson: A doctor at Independence Surgery in Gaborone who sends her patients text message reminders. She is head of the Clinicians Society in Botswana. Our Last Words We realize that since the global financial crisis money has become tighter for every family and there are many other causes that you could donate to if you are considering donating at all. However, your donation to this project will not only help people living with HIV enroll in a service that can allow them to be able to relax and forget and complain and have someone there to remind them and to listen. Your donation will also inspire us, all the young people working on this project, and show us that when we forgo the usual route of graduate school or corporate America right after college and instead give up making money for awhile to come together from different nationalities to try and help other people who are in need, that the world conspires to help us. And belief in the goodness and the charity of others no matter how hard their current circumstances is what will drive us to keep doing projects like this one and to encourage other young people to follow in our footsteps. https://www.fundable.com/groupaction...-17.7686647675 |
#2
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The Botswana Project: Using Cell Phones to Combat HIV/AIDS
$1.66 per cellphone?
On Sat, 17 Jan 2009 10:24:19 -0800 (PST), wrote: We are looking to raise $7,500 in order to purchase about 12,500 cell phones for the scale up of our project. |
#3
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The Botswana Project: Using Cell Phones to Combat HIV/AIDS
Sorry, my bad. That's $0.60c per cellphone!!!
How about I give you $15,000, you buy 25,000 cell phones, and give me half of them? Sounds like an excellent deal. On Tue, 20 Jan 2009 09:37:39 +0200, Marc Lurie wrote: $1.66 per cellphone? On Sat, 17 Jan 2009 10:24:19 -0800 (PST), wrote: We are looking to raise $7,500 in order to purchase about 12,500 cell phones for the scale up of our project. |
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