Inter Press Service - August 27, 2000
Marwaan Macan-Markar

This venture - the Health InterNetwork for Developing Nations - is one of the initiatives UN Secretary-General Kofi Anan will stress as an urgent global need during next month's Millennium Summit at the UN building in New York.

In his Millennium Report to this high-level UN conference, Annan declares that the on-line sites to be established in hospitals and clinics in developing countries will be the UN's effort to bridge the "digital divide" that has deprived medical communities in the developing world from receiving "state-of-the-art" medical information.

This network will establish "global knowledge equity in health by a vehicle that is easy to use and access," says Dr. George Gellert, president and chief executive officer of the United States-based WebMD Foundation.

"The InterNetwork will serve as a two-way communication system between health professionals within developing countries and also around the world," adds Dr. Gellert, whose organisation is a key partner in this venture given its involvement in creating the InterNetwork.

For Dr. Michael Scholtz, the special representative of the World Health Organisation's (WHO) director general, the health network will enable doctors in developing countries to secure current information about pressing public health issues from such sources like the WHO and the US-based Centre for Disease Control.

And that, he points out, will be a significant change from what many Third World medical communities currently have to settle for - "not receiving any up-to-date medical journals, guidelines or other medical information, (or that) the information they have is outdated or incomplete."

This initiative, however, comes in the wake of other on-line and state-of-the-art information networks that have been launched this year. In April, for instance, a network was established for Central and West Africa to help combat the spread of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) that causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

Supported by the UN's department for AIDS (UNAIDS), this network, the first of its kind in French, was described as an important step to "broaden the exchange of information and experiences, strengthen advocacy efforts, promote prevention measures (and) reinforce access to care and treatment" in one of the areas hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

And in May, the US-based WorldSpace Foundation and SATELLIFE launched a health information system to supply a "steady stream of material to assist medical professionals in Africa in the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of diseases that are raving that continent."

Called the Public Health Channel, and created with a range of "high-quality information resources," this service sought to combat such diseases as and tuberculosis, in addition to HIV/AIDS, through a steady dose of relevant medical assistance.

But by comparison, the plans outlined for the Health InterNetwork make it a much larger exercise. Its goal is to install 100 internet- accessible computers in each of the 130 poorest countries selected for this venture. And to ensure wider access of these 13,000 public health sites, they will be located in urban and rural clinics, public health care facilities, hospitals and medical schools.

"Beginning with India," it reveals, "a pilot phase of six to 12 months will focus on need assessments in selected nations and building the content of the Internet portal, stressing priority public health programmes."

Thereafter, a "roll-out phase" of two to three years will then broaden the project to include "general health concerns, strive to increase connectivity and develop mid-term financing concepts." In an effort to ensure sustainability, the third phase will strive to transfer the InterNetwork "to local management and financing."

Dr. Scholtz estimates this venture to cost in the neighbourhood of 150 to 200 million dollars, since its implementation will also require infrastructure development, training and maintenance. And funds to back this effort will be sought from the private sector and philanthropic organisations in addition to "sweat equity" from "dedicated partners" willing to contribute services free of charge to the project.

For Stephen Hamann, assistant dean at the Faculty of Medicine, Rangsit University, Thailand, if this effort to bridge the digital divide is to succeed, "distributing good, evidence-based knowledge is essential."

Equally important, he observes, is for the information to "be coupled with a progressive attitude to medical change and resources to at least test new advances, so that doctors know new advances work under the circumstances they face."

In addition, says Dr. Purabi Dutta, it should contribute towards educating doctors in the developing world about the latest drug developments.

"These doctors normally do not have much access to medical information on various stages of drug development currently underway," adds Dr. Dutta, director of health, nutrition and population programmes at the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Community, a non-governmental organisation.

According to Gellert, the health network does seek to provide "custom designed content" for the 130 countries chosen to benefit from this effort. "It is designed to capture essential health data for local, national and international institutions while disseminating crucially needed public health information."

Furthermore, he says, the network will "meet a variety of medical needs at each site," and among those identified thus far include information on common communicable diseases, emerging infections, pandemics, environmental health threats, new treatments and therapeutic variations, chronic disease, injury prevention and wellness programme promotion.

For Annan, the targets set through this initiative "are realistic," and he wants the international community to back this venture by taking "full advantage of the opportunities offered by globalisation and the revolution in information technology."

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