The United Nations is partnering with Africa-focused wireless carriers including MTN Group and Orange SA on a mobile-data platform that delivers coronavirus-related information around the continent.

The free-to-use service has the potential to reach almost half of the African population, or about 600 million people, through their phones, according to Vera Songwe, the executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa.

Vodacom Group Ltd. and Airtel Africa Plc make up the quartet of companies putting rivalries to one side to help with the service, which will be available in 23 African countries and called the Africa Communications Intelligence Platform.

The platform will harness a mix of older technology that works with voice and text messages on basic phones, still popular throughout much of Africa, and broadband that complies with more modern smart devices.

“In Africa, the economic impact is now almost greater than the health impact, although we know that infections are still on the increase,” the U.N.’s Tunde Fafunwa said in the interview with Songwe.