Pesinet Infant Mortality

Project

Pesinet is a preventive child health project in Mali that uses mobile phones to catch illness in under-fives before it becomes life-threatening. Local staff visit families regularly and use a Java application on their phones to send infants’ weights and symptoms such as fever to pediatricians, who can flag children at risk and arrange consultations and access to medicines. Financed by Alcatel-Lucent, Medex, Kafo Yeredeme, Afrique Initiatives and Fondation Orange Mali, the model was designed to become self-financing through small family subscription fees once initial installation costs were covered, and a similar programme in Senegal saw infant mortality fall from 120 to 8 per 1,000 births, with a 90% survival rate when illness was reported quickly.