A Bangladesh voice based service that provides health information to pregnant women and new mothers just hit 100,000 subscribers in July. The service is called Aponjon (meaning “Trusted One) was launched in 2011. Here’s a short description of the service:
The aim of Aponjon is to dispel commonly held misconceptions about child birth, while informing mothers of genuine health dangers and warning signs. The service also offers guidance to local healthcare services and explains the benefits of family planning.
This type of service immediately brings to mine the popular Text 4 Baby service in the US. One major challenge with the Text4Baby initiative is that you have to be able to read. That’s not a great solution in areas with a low level of literacy. Aponjon solves this problem by providing their messages as a voice based service.
I love seeing the power of mHealth internationally. In fact, I think the greater mobile health opportunity might be outside of the US than inside the US. Plus, there are often far fewer health regulations in these countries. Comparing it to the Wild West is not a stretch.
