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9 March 2016 – Starting this month, a thousand people living with HIV in Côte d’Ivoire will receive additional health information through their mobile phones, the United Nations agency leading the world’s HIV/AIDS response announced today.

The four-month pilot project in Abidjan is part of a collaboration between the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the telecommunications operator Orange.

This project “will allow countries to benefit from state-of-the-art technology that is cost-effective and simple to use, to ensure they can provide the highest quality of services for people living with and affected by HIV,” Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS, said in a press release.

By using a web-based platform, Orange Mobile Training EveryWhere (M-Tew), healthcare workers will be able to communicate via text messages, calls and voice messages, with people enrolled in care.

The people involved in the pilot project are those most affected by HIV in Abidjan, according to the press release, including 300 sex workers and men who have sex with men.

DFID makes the right noises over Ebola lessons

The outbreak of Ebola that devastated West Africa is out of the media spotlight, and no doubt many of us have wondered what happened to all those debates over lessons to be learned. A panel discussion at the United Kingdom’s Parliament delved into this issue last week.   The event was organised by the Africa All Party Parliamentary Group to launch a report reviewing evidence submitted in response to an inquiry into the Ebola response last year, which included our Spotlight collection.

See more at: http://www.scidev.net/global/ebola/scidev-net-at-large/dfid-ebola-disease-lessons-West-Africa.html#sthash.u9tzVGfh.dpuf

The Second round of vaccination against measles in Sierra Leone has been scheduled to commence on Thursday, the Ministry of Health and Sanitation said today. Over 1.5 million children are being targeted during the five-day campaign that will see health volunteers move door-to-door to vaccinate children against the preventable viral disease that reared its ugly head at the height of the Ebola epidemic.

Children who missed out on other routine vaccinations will also be given those doses.