Mobiles to help track disease.

"Mobile phone technology is being developed to help manage the spread of diseases such as HIV and bird flu.The software is designed to allow field workers using handsets to send and receive data on disease outbreaks along with patient and drug information.The project is a collaboration between technology firm Voxiva and the trade association for mobile operators, GSMA.Trials of the relatively low-cost application are underway in Rwanda, Africa and in Indonesia.When a disease is spreading rapidly, health authorities need information that is bang-up-to-dateRob Conway, GSMAThe program works by sending the data through the general packet radio service (GPRS) network, and if this is unavailable, it can divert to an SMS data channel, normally used for text messages."