Sequoia Technology Spearheads Novel Communications System for Mozambique Early Infant Diagnosis program

Sequoia Technology Spearheads Novel Communications System for Mozambique Early Infant Diagnosis programSequoia Technology spearheads novel communications system to greatly improve the quality of Mozambique's Early Infant Diagnosis program - the Expedited Results System (ERS)

From 2007 to 2009, Mozambique saw a rapid expansion of the National Early Infant Diagnosis programme for diagnosis of HIV/AIDS in newborn children to include over 235 health centers across the country. However, transportation of samples and results between remote districts and two central laboratories often takes many weeks. To accelerate the return of results, Sequoia Technology devised an innovative system, in conjunction with The Clinton Foundation, to allow laboratories to send and print test results directly in any health centre with GPRS network coverage. Called the Expedited Results System (ERS) it utilizes Sequoia designed system software, GPRS enabled printers and the local GSM network to vastly reduce the time and cost of transporting results from the laboratory to clinics accurately and reliably. ERS is managed centrally by an administrative assistant, reducing the workload of skilled laboratory technicians. Features of the Sequoia designed system are confidentiality and the delivery of results being guaranteed through automated monitoring and evaluation software over the African GSM network along with unique GPRS enable printers.

All health centres in Mozambique have now been fitted with Sequoia GPRS printers and the software and servers are based in Reading in the UK. The complete system has now been proved for a number of months now with 100% of all data messages being received correctly right across Mozambique. This system has now helped more than 20,000 infants since its inception in Mozambique. Sequoia is now poised to help all other African countries with this system via the Clinton Foundation

Background to introduction of the ERS system

In Mozambique, limited sample referral logistics, insufficient laboratory capacity and minimal numbers of skilled health care workers led to undesirably long turn around times for critical Early Infant Diagnosis (EID) results, significantly delaying treatment initiation, and ultimately contributing to child mortality. The ERS system was specifically designed to connect all the new health centres within Mozambique to the central laboratories to significantly speed up the early diagnosis of infants to HIV/AIDs specifically and other diseases.

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