By Emeka Aginam

Despite poor medical infrastructure, Africa’s health is improving slowly by the day as  fewer mothers die in pregnancy and childbirth.

But with the recent launch of  mobile health live saving services by GSMA with other stakeholders in the ecosystem, there are positive signals that  the  livelihood of addressable market of  about 15.5 million pregnant women and mothers with children under five years of age .across African  continent will improve.

Meanwhile, in  a new study produced and published by the GSMA recently, it was revealed that the market for mobile health services will be valued at more than $23 billion by 2017 with opportunities for mobile operators around the world to capitalize on the demand growing by the day.

The GSMA mHealth Programme  delivers  sustainable mHealth solutions that extend the reach and quality of healthcare while reducing costs.
GSMA’s Mobile for Development mHealth programme  launched  recently in  partnership with Samsung, MTN, the  Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS, (UNAIDS) and other players across the industry.

Initial launch partners for the initiative include Gemalto, Hello Doctor, Lifesaver, Mobenzi, Mobilium, MTN, Omega Diagnostics and Samsung.
The capacity building programme, according to Craig Frederick, Programme Director for the mHealth Mobile for Development GSMA in an exclusive interview with Vanguard will have a particular focus on nutrition, across Sub-Saharan Africa.

He disclosed that there are  a total annual addressable market of 15.5 million pregnant women and mothers with children under five years of age .
From September 2014, services, he disclosed  will be launched jointly in seven African countries including Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia.

The second pilot program  which will commence in 2015,  according to him,  will incorporate additional partners and services and will address four more countries: Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.

Collectively, the partnership will reduce barriers to handset ownership and connectivity for consumers and health workers by committing to offer discounted Samsung handsets and tablets to consumers and health workers across Africa, provide access to the Samsung ecosystem (e.g. music, video and other value-added services) to be used as an incentive to drive health usage, pre-embed a Smart Health application that provides a range of professional applications, information and services on 80 million Samsung handsets, leverage existing and new MTN SIMs to allow free access to health content, health registration and data collection via the Smart Health application, provide simplified access to MTN mobile money, advertising and billing capabilities; and make innovative diagnostics like the Omega Diagnostics Visitect HIV CD4 point of care solution more affordable and accessible via mobile integration.