A professor of genomics at the Scripps Research Institute in California, Eric Topol, thinks that we could - and should - use our smartphones to keep an eye on our health.

The alarming outbreak of Ebola is one of the cases where the technology of smartphones could be applied successfully.

Prof. Topol calls for a completely new approach to diagnosing and screening. Our phones are with us all the time, they are the most appropriate tool to detect changes in our wellbeing. They are already helping to do away with many of the least pleasant aspects of sickness – including the long hospital visits and agonising wait for treatment. An easier way to diagnose Ebola is just one example of these sweeping changes. There are simple plug-ins that can measure your blood pressure, blood sugar level and even analyse your urine, not to mention the fact that if you enable it, a smartphone could virtually know everything about your lifestyle, keeping track of the development of diseases and responses to treatments.

So far however the medical world has not allowed the digital interface to become mainstream. The reasons are of various nature, but there is a strong demand from the public. There are even apps that can detect skin cancer from a selfie, but the accuracy of these tools is still not good enough, experts say, and could mislead users into a sense of false security. But this is likely to be the future, when you'll ask your smartphone for a pill.