Amazon donates 1,000 smartphones to aid Ebola tracking app

PALO ALTO, Calif. (KGO) -- Tracking and documenting Ebola patients is being made easier with an app. Two brothers from South Africa created it and a Bay Area technology journalist helped broker a deal to get smartphones into the hands of aid workers in West Africa.

"I landed here on a Thursday and on Friday we decided, 'OK, we want to help,'" Philip Joubert said.

App developers Joubert and his brother Malan just moved from South Africa to Palo Alto to do business. However, what they've been doing for the past month isn't making them any money.

"The biggest issue that aid workers we spoke to said was getting information faster," Joubert said.

The brothers created the EbolaCare app.

"I add people that the patient came in contact with," Joubert explains as he shows us the app.

It allows healthcare workers to document and share patient information immediately. But, you can't use an app without a smartphone.

"Initially, we were limited by the number of phones we could donate, so we donated I think around 30 phones," Joubert said.

That's where Bay Area tech journalist Larry Magid became a huge help. He coincidentally met with the brothers the same day Amazon announced it was losing millions of dollars on unsold Fire phones. Magid got an idea to pair the two together.

"This is lemons into lemonade. These are phones that may have lost Amazon a lot of money, but if they can save lives, I hope that the folks at Amazon feel very good about what they've been able to accomplish," Magid said.

Amazon has donated 1,000 phones.

"It's sort of empowering knowing that someone in West Africa is using your app and they think it's saving lives," Joubert said.

The phones should be in the hands of healthcare workers by early December.