UNFPA Launches TEXT4LIFE APP to Provide Essential Healthcare Services

Women and girls, adolescents and young people face several difficulties accessing sexual and reproductive health (SRH) as well as Gender Based Violence (GBV) services in the country.

Thus, there is a dire need to improve and expand these services following their vulnerability amidst COVID-19 pandemic in tandem with the activities of the “Engaging with Civil Society Organisations to reduce the impact of COVID-19” project funded by the One UN Basket Fund.

As part of measures to enhance access to life-saving healthcare information and essential health services, UNFPA Nigeria today launched the TEXT4LIFE virtual app and the Youth COVID-19 Handout- “Adapting to the new Normal”

The UNFPA Text4Life service is a phone-based innovative message service system that is designed to establish real-time communication between callers, primary healthcare centres and responders in the healthcare delivery system in Lagos, Ogun, Kaduna, Kano, Enugu, Akwa-Ibom, Gombe, Sokoto, Borno and the FCT.

Through this two way-communication process, TETX4LIFE technology will also support the reporting of suspected cases of COVID-19 infection, Gender Based Violence (GB) incidents and other Sexual and Reproductive Health Problems for prompt and professional clinical intervention and management.

To ensure unhindered access and minimal downtime, another feature of the system is an uninterrupted power supply source, supported by a central database server.

The app is available on a USSD platform and each session is unique, identifiable and programmable. TEXT4LIFE services are compatible on feature phones as well as the most complicated of smartphones without any data compromise.

Prospective users can use the unique code *347*161# to register and create a confidential report on the platform.

UNFPA is also launching a Handout for Youths on COVID-19: COVID-19 Adapting to the New Normal. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the fore some of the persistent challenges young people face and the need for youth inclusion in programming.

This handout would complement all efforts to ensure young persons have adequate knowledge about COVID-19 to be able to adapt to the new normal. Developed and produced in a format that is easily understood by young persons in both formal and informal settings, it is expected to be widely disseminated.

It has sections on debunking myths and misconceptions, symptoms and signs of COVID-19 and preventive measures against its transmission.