A Mobile Phone-Based Expert System for Disease Diagnosis - E-Healthcare Systems and Wireless Communications - page 229

Deployment Architecture for MPDDS eracy could, however, hamper its widespread use,

especially among the non-literate. The level of
illiteracy in the developing nations and particu-
larly in Africa is terribly high to the extent that
Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for about one in
five of the world's 774 million illiterates in 1995
- 2004 (EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2008).
So, for the African continent to benefit maximally
from the services that can be accessed via mobile
phones, concerted efforts must be made by each
nation to tackle the menace of illiteracy. The cost
of these devices are also going down, yet because
of the fact that majority are still living below the
poverty line in Africa, many still are not able to
afford them. This also poses a serious threat to
the widespread availability of these devices. As
the capabilities of mobile devices in terms of
increased memory, processing power and bat-

The deployment architecture for MPDDS is as
shown below in Figure 7. It is client-server archi-
tecture. The client systems include personal digital
assistant (PDA), cell phone and smart phone. The
web server and application (MPDDS) servers are
located remotely and provide access to the mobile
phone-based disease diagnosis system. The user
connects with MPDDS over the air via global
system of mobile phone (GSM) provider.

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

Although the use of mobile phones is on the rise
on the African continent, the high level of illit-

Figure 5. Screenshot of the Severity of the Symp-
toms

Figure 4. Screenshot of the Symptoms of the Dis-
eases Diagnosed by MPDDS