Communications engineers join fight against AIDS in Africa through wireless printer program

The Associated Press/Huffington Post reports on how communications engineers are joining the fight against AIDS in Africa, highlighting a project in Mozambique that brings wireless printers equipped with cell phone technology to remote villages. "Getting AIDS test results from labs to remote villages once took weeks in Mozambique, with the information sent by courier along the impoverished country's terrible roads. The delay could mean death," the news agency writes, adding, "Now, communications engineers have adapted office printers and cell-phone technology to wirelessly and immediately relay test results."

The AP notes, "In the first six months alone that the program was up and running in Mozambique, 20,000 results were relayed to the printers." The news agency writes, "Britain's Sequoia Technology Group and Telit Wireless said Tuesday the printers are being rolled out elsewhere in Africa after initial success in Mozambique, where the project has been running for a year" (Bryson, 4/10).