A major challenge in southern Africa is spotting and containing the spread of infectious diseases or other problems among livestock, especially given the chronic shortage of resources. Now, the United Nations is making the problem easier tomanage with Bluetooth technology.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) operates in 14 African nations to monitor and report potential livestock concerns. It’s a race against time that field workers frequently lose. They often must hand-deliver reports to distant regional FAO offi ces, meaning it can take up to 30 days for data to reach epidemiologists, health officials and other decision makers. Livestock and any problems they carrymay have moved during that time, making disease tracking and containment difficult.

But the rise of mobile phone networks in Africa means workers can collect and distribute vital information within seconds. In a pilot project being deployed across the FAOcoverage area, Bluetooth enabled electronic pads and pens speed reports to authorities.

Developed by Data World (Pty.) Ltd. of South Africa, the solution uses Anoto Group’s Digital Pen and Paper technology. The pen’s infrared camera, image processor and Bluetooth wireless transceiver work with a series of tiny dots printed on ordinarypaper. By ticking a box at the bottom of the paper, users transmit via a Bluetooth enabled mobile phone anything they write or draw.

“Field workers fi ll in the form with the digital pen, click to send the message to a mobile phone and the system transfers the data to our server in Durban, South Africa,” says Fred Musisi, consultant and former regional coordinator for FAO, who notes that there are already 40 field implementations in northern Namibia alone. “We can build up a database very fast. We can monitordisease progression on a day-by-day basis.”

Joe McKendrick is an author who specializes in information technology and management trends.

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