Health Care that Moves

Imagine being ‘at work’, 24 hours a day, 26 days each month. While this thought would bring even the most enthusiastic workaholics to their knees, this is, in fact, a reality for truck drivers and transport workers across Africa and around the world. Couple this reality with limited access to health care and near constant mobility and the results prove devastating. Without proper access to quality health care, curable illness goes untreated and infectious diseases are able to spread across enormous distances. The result: the health of transport communities suffer, their direct and indirect contacts suffer, and businesses, that depend on a safe and healthy supply-chains, suffer.

At North Star Alliance, we’ve developed a simple yet effective solution: Build a physical network of clinics at transport hubs along major corridors throughout Africa; network each clinic together, and to each patient, using an innovative electronic health passport system; offer lifesaving access to basic health care, prevention, and treatment services to mobile populations, their direct and indirect contacts, and the surrounding communities; stop the spread of infectious disease.

In 2006, North Star Alliance set out to build this network. Since then we’ve established 22 roadside health clinics in 10 countries offering life-saving prevention, testing, and treatment services to 250,000 people annually (and growing!). To explain better how our model works, however, we wanted to share some of the exciting results from our East Africa network. Check out our latest infographic above and leave us a comment!