Mobile app supports mothers and child during COVID-19 pandemic

Photo: UNFPA Vietnam/Duong Van Dat

To support the Ministry of Health to strengthen solutions to continuously access and deliver maternal and childcare services in the context of social distancing to prevent COVID-19 transmission, UNFPA works with the Department of Maternal and Child Health and the Center for Population and Health Initiatives (CCIHP) to develop an application called MH247 (“Happy mum and baby”) to increase interaction between health care workers and pregnant mothers and mothers have children under 6 years old to continously provide counseling and make appointments for health checks.

The app is currently being tested in 10 communes of Hoa Binh province (where many ethnic groups live) and Bac Ninh (where there are many migrant workers in industrial zones). Currently, the training of health workers in 10 participating communes on how to install and use app has been implemented. These staff will select pregnant mothers and with children under 6 who have smart phones and have access to the internet in the commune to guide them in installing and using this app.

It is estimated that about 1,000 women in the target group will benefit from this intervention. An assessment will be conducted after two months of testing, lessons learned will be drawn to improve this application so that it can be widely deployed in areas of need.

Tu Anh