The Jibu app will empower health workers with realtime access to information.

Kenya-based NGO Amref Health Africa has launched the Jibu app, a mobile learning platform to provide realtime information and learning opportunities to health workers and medical students. The organisation acknowledges the role the app could play in helping to curb the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19).

Users can engage the app to register for courses, take tests and secure certification. It will also be updated with the latest medical treatment and related information to support qualified health workers.

It took developer Rafael Muia a year to design, develop, test, pilot and implement the app, which is now available for both Android and iOS smartphone users to download and use on mobile devices.

The release of the technology could not be more timely, given the worldwide focus – and ongoing reaction to COVID-19.

Muia says: “This is a great app that can be used as a go-to place for up-to-date, authentic COVID-19 information and safety practice on avoidance, prevention and contamination control eLearning content once it is live.”

Currently, more than 2700 health workers across 15 African countries can access 41 courses that have been uploaded and more courses are scheduled to be added on demand and when opportunities arise.

Once downloaded, the user must register to be able to use the app, and can take a course, save the progress and pick up from where they left.

The organisation is targeting one million health workers in Sub-Saharan Africa, a region the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates will experience a projected shortfall of 18 million health workers by 2030.

Diana Mukami, Digital Learning Director at the Institute of Capacity Development at Amref Health Africa says, “Jibu will allow frontline health workers to be better equipped with skills to deliver quality health care services. It will address the need for training and critical shortages of human resources for health and accelerate progress to make universal health coverage a reality in Africa.”

Jackline Kinyua, a pharmaceutical technologist at the Mount Kenya Sub-county Hospital in Nyeri says the app has definitely helped her: “The fact that one can as well download notes and read offline works very well for me since I don’t then need to always be online, which could be expensive. The certificates enable us to get license renewals to practice from our respective boards also.”