(Business in Cameroon) - MTN Health, new service of Cameroon’s mobile telephony leader, MTN, was recently launched in collaboration with the national Order of physicians of Cameroon and the Minister of Public Health. This service provides medical consultancy through a dedicated platform.

In practicality, subscribers can through a mail or an SMS, ask health-related questions to the doctors involved in the project, who in turn will send precise answers through the same channel. Concerning the fees of the MTN Health service, details will be sent in real-time to users according to the nature of their request. 

MTN hereby follows the steps of its rival, Orange, that launched a similar service, “My Healthline”, last April, and which allows its subscribers to receive advice on contraception, HIV/AIDS, sexuality and ISTs at FCFA 200/SMS.

It should be mentioned that, Cameroon has a ratio of 1:10,000 in terms of residing medical doctors from which most of the specialized are found in big cities such as Douala and Yaoundé.

According to operators, the penetration rate for mobile telephony which exceeds 90%, should remediate to this scarcity of medical doctors in the country.

BRM