Peter Benjamin, Cell-Life General Manager, notes that ICT can be used to support the fight against HIV/AIDS, particularly to support the National Strategic Plan (NSP). He maintains that the NGO sector needs to understand what the NSP is, for the purposes of mobilising people around this topic in the bid to ensure that it becomes a reality.  

To bring context to the issue, Benjamin referred to various HIV/AIDS statistics, noting that over 5.5 million people have HIV in South Africa, which is the largest number of people in the entire world. He quoted a statistic that states that 1400 people are infected everyday with HIV in South Africa.

How ICT can help in fight Against HIV/AIDS:
1.    Improve the efficiency of the ‘back-office’ of HIV/AIDS organisations, especially at community level

2.    Strengthen mass communication of prevention, treatment, anti-stigma and other HIV messages
3.    Support health informatics to provide treatment and care, especially through comprehensive record keeping
4.    Monitor & evaluate all aspects of the NSP
5.    Support the self-organisation of people living with HIV, assisting their voice being heard

6.    Provide a medium for research, advocacy and other forms of information sharing.

Benjamin makes the argument that in the near future ICT and information systems will determine who will receive antiretrovirals (ARVs), so literally “ICTs are now becoming a matter of life and death,” argues Benjamin.

In this regard Tukisang Senne, Health Director Mindset Network, drew our attention to the work done by Mindset in the fight against HIV/AIDS with the aid of ICT tools. Through the internet, the organisation attempts to make contact and educate health-workers through the internet. “We have to find a way to bring the education to where they are,” he said.

Benjamin notes that there is a massive potential to use cell phones in the fight against HIV/AIDS by providing the population with vital information through this ICT. He argues that HIV/AIDS oriented NGOs need to use the most widely used form of ICT in the country to disseminate information about the pendamic.

In this vein, Cell-Life is currently involved in a project that caters for this very need to disseminate the information through cell phone usage. Benjamin said that through the project, “We are actually looking at can we use these technologies for social development.”