The EU has confirmed that it will be funding a major new FP7 grant ‘Supporting low cost intervention for disease control’ (SUPPORTING LIFE). This is an exciting new international research initiative for the Department of Primary Care Health Sciences and brings together several strands of IT, child health and diagnostic research.
The collaboration will be led by University College Cork, with Mzuzu University and an NGO called Ungweru in Malawi, Lund University in Sweden and the Department of Primary Care Health Sciences in Oxford where it will be led by Matthew Thompson, Alison Ward and Carl Heneghan.
The project seeks to utilise established technology to circumvent the absent or limited health care infrastructure by exploiting the cellular telecommunications network, improved use of vital sign measurement devices and point of care decision support systems – with a focus on improving child health particularly in rural clinic settings.