Report
This IDRC-funded project introduced handheld computers to strengthen malaria surveillance in Mozambique’s Maputo and Gaza provinces, where malaria is the leading cause of illness and death. Run between May 2006 and July 2007 as part of the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative’s malaria programme, the project distributed 20 PDAs, eight GPS units and 20 mobile phones to district health staff, who used custom data-collection tools built by SatelLife to record drug and test-kit stocks, spraying activity, health facility statistics and household health data, syncing it back to central databases over cellular connections. An independent evaluation found every technician who used the PDAs found them a useful tool for data collection and wanted to keep using them, despite early technical setbacks with cellphone-based data transfer and PDAs having to be shared between teams.