A smartphone app containing a health handbook that has helped lower Japan's child mortality rate will be distributed to Palestinian refugees living in Jordan.
The maternal and child health handbook app, available in Jordan from April 4, will allow mothers to have at their fingertips vital information about the health of themselves and their children. About 2 million refugees live in Jordan.
It will also allow for both mother and child to continue receiving the appropriate medical treatment if they are moved to a new refugee camp or if they lose the paper version of the handbook.
About 80 percent of mothers in Jordan own a smartphone, according to Akihiro Seita, 56, who heads the health department at the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
The maternal and child health handbook, published in Japan shortly after the end of World War II, is credited with reducing the mortality rates of both mothers and children.
The app version was developed by the United Nations and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
Japanese nonprofit organizations and JICA have worked to spread the handbook in developing nations and currently about 40 countries use it to maintain a running record of the health of the mother and child.
Introduced in Palestine in 2008, it has been distributed to mothers with newborn infants in refugee camps in the Gaza Strip and West Bank as well as in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The distribution has been handled by the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA.
Digital medical records have been created at clinics operated by UNRWA and information from the paper handbooks have also been converted to a digital form.
By sending the digital medical records to the handbook app, mothers can view the information on their smartphones.
Israel's conflict with the Palestinians as well as the worsening of the fighting in Syria has led to an increase in refugees flocking to Jordan.
"They will be able to continue receiving medical treatment at their new refugee camp even if they should lose the handbook during their evacuation," said Akiko Hagiwara, 54, an international cooperation specialist with JICA.
The app will later be made available in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Lebanon, but it will take some time for it to reach Syria because digitization of medical records has been delayed due to the ongoing conflict in the nation.
Under sustainable development goals established by the United Nations, one objective is to reduce the mortality rate for children aged 5 and younger to under 25 for every 1,000 live births by 2030 in all nations.
The mortality rate is 3 in Japan, while the rate in Palestine is 21, according to UNICEF. Many African nations also suffer from a high mortality rate.
The World Health Organization is planning to make it a policy to create maternal and child health handbooks as a way to reduce the mortality rate and hopes to achieve this before the end of 2017.
Source: http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201704030032.html