“The handsets, wholesale-priced at under $30, are targeted for markets such as India, South Africa, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Thailand, the Philippines, and Yemen…To get below US$30 per handset is a milestone achievement…and will bring the benefits of mobile communications to a huge swathe of people in developing countries.”

Dramatic cell phone growth has occured over the past decade (graph from MIT). For those in the public health realm who are unaware of the tremendous impact of mobile phones across the world, it’s worthwhile considering the following two facts – there are now 2.5 billion mobile phone connections and 59% of mobile phone users are now in developing countries. Already people are trying to use this ICT (information and communication technology) for various health related reasons (medication reminders, data entry and transmission, pandemic tracking, etc.). ICTs (e.g. internet, phones, radios, etc) will have a profound impact on global health. I picked up this story from NEXTBILLION.NET (here and here). Also tipped off from next billion, you can read more about Africa and mobile phones here.