Text message reminders improve healthcare practice in rural
Africa, study finds New research funded by the Wellcome Trust
has shown that sending text message reminders to healthcare
workers in rural Africa can improve the implementation of
national guidelines for treating malaria. The intervention led
to more patients receiving accurate antimalarial treatment. The
study, published today in The Lancet, was carried out by
researchers at the Kenya Medical Research Institute
(KEMRI)-Wellcome Trust Research Programme in Nairobi. Within
Africa, the adherence to national malaria treatment guidelines
by health workers is vital in making sure that patients stick to
and correctly complete malaria treatment doses. Failure to do so
can not only affect the patient's recovery from the disease, but
can also increase the likelihood of the malaria parasites
becoming resistant to the drugs. However, despite the relatively
simple guidelines, failure by the health workers to adhere to
the guidelines has been widely reported acro