The UN general assembly met this week (19-20 September) to discuss non-communicable diseases (NCDs), a subject that now tops the international health agenda.  Bear in mind this was only the second high-level meeting the UN has called to discuss a disease. The previous one a decade ago met to discuss HIV which gives an idea of how seriously NCDs are now taken.

The most recent estimates from the World Health Organisation suggest 36 million of the 57 million deaths around the world were the result of NCDs (2008 figures), the Financial Times reported. The vast majority of those affected are in the developing world and are disproportionately aged under 60.

Speaking during the event, general assembly president Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser said communications technologies offer a crucial tool to developing countries in fighting disease.  Five years ago no one would have imagined that a young person in the Middle East could use a mobile phone to help manage their diabetes, he said.

The causes of NCDs are familiar to those in the know. Diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic respiratory illness and diabetes, have spread alarmingly from wealthier western countries to the developing world in recent years, a side effect from the adoption of a western lifestyle that comes with prosperity.

However outside those in the health establishment, knowledge is worryingly thin on the ground. As an interviewee in the FT accurately pointed out this week: “Have you ever met anybody in the street or at a dinner party who knows what NCDs stand for and why they matter? We have a long way to go.”

He’s right. Which is where awareness campaigns come into the picture. More particularly campaigns with the capability to rapidly reach a significant cross-section of the population which is obviously where SMS can play a role.

Hence this week’s announcement by a consortium led by US NGO Arogya World in association with Nokia that it will launch an SMS-based diabetes awareness campaign in India. The campaign aims to reach one million users in rural and urban parts of the country over the next two years. The campaign is certainly necessary.  Its backers reckon 50 million Indians live with diabetes and one million die from the disease each year.

The consortium will deliver its message about diabetes to users via Nokia’s Life Tools, the handset vendor’s information service that is available to users in India as well as a number of other countries. Nokia is still a force in India despite its market share having fallen substantially from the heyday of 50 percent plus in recent years. According to figures published this week by research firm IDC, the vendor has a 25 percent share of the country's mobile handset market (Q2, 2011 figures).

The handset vendor is not the only member of the diabetes-awareness consortium in India. The others include a university, a pharmaceutical manufacturer, a healthcare insurer and a supplier of blood glucose meters, as well as Arogya World which claims the initiative will offer a potential model for others in the developing world. In addition to the service itself, the diversity of this group could act as a model.  Others who could be added into such a mixed group could include national government, for instance ministries of health, and mobile operators. Hopefully with such a wide input of skills then some progress can be made in combating NCDs.

Richard Handford

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