Marketers are leveraging mobile to correct false or misleading information about the Ebola outbreak and ease public concern, as 21st century technology is enlisted to combat a disease that resembles a plague from ancient times.

Amid the dissemination of incorrect statements about Ebola?s cause through social media, authorities are using mobile applications to give the facts about the disease, which began in Africa and has spread globally. The tapping of mobile to correct misleading statements points to the role it can play as a valuable public-relations tool during a public health crisis.

?Ubiquity, speed, and data are three facets of mobile that can help in times of an epidemic,? said Brett Leary, vice president and group director of mobile for DigitasLBi. ?The ability to communicate with a population in crisis has always been a top priority for health officials. The mobile phone provides reach on a global level.

?Even within the hardest-hit countries within West Africa, mobile phone penetration at a household level has crossed the 50 percent  penetration mark, according to Gallup,? he said. 

?Certainly, in more developed nations, access to mobile phones, especially smartphones, is even higher.?

The World Health Organization?s latest update on Ebola, posted last week on its Web site, said the number of confirmed, probable and suspected cases totaled 15,145, with 5,420 reported deaths. Nearly all were in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with two deaths in the United States.

The update also said that at least 584 health care workers, who are among those most at risk of contracting the disease, had been infected, and that 329 had died.

International SOS, a network of assistance centers, clinics, and health and logistics providers, has released a mobile application designed to help share its medical and travel information on Ebola. The free app available on iOS and Android devices provides online, instant access to key sections from International SOS? dedicated Ebola Web site and aims to correct false claims about the disease?s origin ? such as that the disease has been spread via a government conspiracy or is a punishment from a divine power.

The app provides on-the-go users with the latest news on the outbreak and maps showing affected areas. It also includes a live International SOS Twitter feed, an educational video on staying safe while travelling and push notifications for key information.

In another use of mobile in an epidemic, the Nebraska Medical Center recently leveraged a telemedicine solution to help care for a physician returning from Africa who was infected with Ebola.

?Mobile?s ability to generate, capture and transmit data can prove very useful to health researchers,? Mr. Leary said. ?While smartphones grab headlines due to their ability to provide location data, capture biometric data, and more, it is the feature phone still used in many emerging countries such as those in West Africa that is at front at the moment. 

?Researchers can use the phones to capture survey information via calls or SMS,? he said. ?Citizens? calls to call centers can be logged and used to capture eyewitness accounts of disease impact into a central database for further analysis.?

Getting the word out about a global epidemic, of course, is not new. In the pre-mobile era, public health campaigns took aim at eradicating diseases such as smallpox.

 

Multiple government-sponsored campaigns have taken a guerrilla marketing approach to other pandemics. 

For example, ?Just Say No,? was an advertising campaign, part of the U.S. "War on Drugs", prevalent during the 1980s and early 1990s. ?Get Moving? was an Australian campaign in 2006 that encouraged citizens, but mainly children, to stay active for an hour or more a day to combat obesity. ?Smokey the Bear? was an advertising mascot created in 1944 to educate the American public about the dangers of forest fires.

What is different from efforts of the past is that mobile gives governments and the medical community astonishing speed when it comes to reaching wide cross sections of individuals through their mobile devices in very specific locations with useful, credible information.

Automated calls, SMS alerts, and now Push Notification systems are capable of disseminating huge volumes of messages with a push of a button. 

One of the most prominent, recent uses of mobile to combat an epidemic ? in this case of soaring health care costs ? was United States President Obama?s leveraging of social media to push citizens to sign up for his Affordable Healthcare Act, helping to educate and encourage participation in healthcare reform.

One of the major issues is reaching people in areas with low Internet access. 

Another concern is privacy. In the Ebola outbreak?s wake, the use of a person?s mobile location data, while potentially useful to public health officials to help identify possible geographical areas of concern, is a sensitive topic.

For pharmaceutical companies, epidemic marketing on mobile means minding legal restrictions that can limit an outreach to the public.

 

?Unless the pharma company develops/markets a drug that is indicated for the Ebola virus, they can participate as a sponsor of broader education,? said Krista Bowman, senior vice president and group account director for DigitasLBi. 

?In other words, as long as they?re not making claims around drug safety or efficacy, they should be able to participate in a truly PSA-focused effort with the guidance of their regulatory partners.?