Pérez Guillermo Martínez, Swart Wayne, Munyenyembe Jimmy Kondwani, Saranchuk Peter
Southern Africa Medical Unit, Médecins Sans Frontières, Cape Town, Southern Africa.
Department of Mechanics and Mechatronics, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Pan Afr Med J. 2014 Oct 9;19:136. doi: 10.11604/pamj.2014.19.136.5196. eCollection 2014.
Malawi has one of the highest HIV prevalences in Sub-Saharan Africa. The rate of eligible HIV-infected people being initiated on antiretroviral therapy (ART) and retained in HIV-care is currently far from adequate. Consequently, many people continue present with advanced immunosuppression at public health facilities, often with undiagnosed opportunistic infections (OIs).
In this context, mHealth was the innovation chosen to assist Eye Clinical Officers in early diagnosis of HIV-related diseases having eye manifestations in a rural hospital in Thyolo, Southern Malawi.
The mTeleophthalmology program began in October 2013, but was stopped prematurely due to organizational and technological barriers that compromised its feasibility.
Sharing these barriers might be useful to inform the design of similar innovations in other resource-limited settings with a high HIV prevalence and a dearth of eye specialists with capacity to diagnose HIV-related retinopathies.
马拉维是撒哈拉以南非洲地区艾滋病毒感染率最高的国家之一。目前，符合条件的艾滋病毒感染者开始接受抗逆转录病毒治疗（ART）并持续接受艾滋病毒护理的比例远远不够。因此，许多人在公共卫生机构中仍表现出严重的免疫抑制，往往伴有未被诊断出的机会性感染（OI）。
在这种背景下，移动健康（mHealth）被选为一种创新手段，以协助马拉维南部蒂约洛一家农村医院的眼科临床官员对有眼部表现的艾滋病毒相关疾病进行早期诊断。
移动远程眼科项目于2013年10月启动，但由于组织和技术障碍影响了其可行性，该项目提前终止。
分享这些障碍可能有助于为其他资源有限、艾滋病毒感染率高且缺乏诊断艾滋病毒相关视网膜病变能力的眼科专家的地区设计类似的创新项目提供参考。
