This article was original published at here. 

COMVIDA uma Solução Tencológica no combate à COVID19 em Cabo Verde
Comvida e o site contaram com a parceria do PNUD que através do Accelerator Lab trabalhou com um grupo de jovens inovadores que fazem parte da Cabo Verde.

“We didn’t know then what we know now – that a new virus would emerge that would bring many parts of society to a standstill…”  WHO Director-General

Context

In the face of the recent crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, which plagues the whole world and Cape Verde in particular, all organizations and individuals are called upon to make their contribution so that we can face this whole situation of health emergency and their social and economic impacts effectively and urgently, in a humanitarian situation that requires a multi-level response, focusing on people, low-level workers, small businesses, in short, on the most vulnerable.

Thus, Accelerator Lab Cape Verde could not leave, within the areas and intervention and skills in generating and testing innovative ideas that can meet the needs of people and sustainable development, comes, in these circumstances of to launch an initiative to develop a technological solution to support the spread of COVID-19, the Government of Cape Verde and UNDP presented COMVIDA a technological solution to combat the CRISIS COVID19, a solution that has several modules to support several fronts: It makes available to the citizen a privileged channel with a view to comfort and softening of the panic that tends to be installed, in parallel will support the green line in the optimization and monitoring, health units in management.

 A technological solution

This pandemic has triggered an unprecedented demand for digital health technology solutions and has revealed successful solutions such as for population screening, tracking the infection, prioritizing the use and allocation of resources, and designing targeted responses.

The Platform was developed in a partnership between UNDP Accelerator Lab, DevTrust, NOSI, ZING Developers, and BONAKO. system that allows official information to be made available, to collect information from users and to provide useful information to users in this current emergency framework. Also provide the following functions: Input Monitoring, Incident Monitoring, Monitoring and Maps with the signaling of areas with greater focus of occurrences.

The Website www.covid19.cv is the official communication channel where the citizen can consult the general map of positive cases, the official information and communications from the Government and various information on how to protect themselves.

Prevention

Since information is a critical vehicle for combating epidemics, a strong involvement of telecommunications companies is essential to ensure free access to information to combat epidemics, whether through APP, Facebook, email, websites and SMS.

Pandemic

Visit Health Unit

In the management of epidemics, it is essential to control access to health units with assertiveness. Prevention channels support the containment of possible races to health structures, which could result in a greater spread of the epidemic.

Although most cases the citizen will not have the need to go to the Health Units, when it happens, the structures should be able to access a parallel registration system, very similar to that made available to operators of the green line.  Symptoms and other relevant information must be registered.

Information on citizens who have been under observation under suspicion, and confirmator cases, shall be duly recorded in a timely manner so that information is available on feed the monitoring component and in cases where it is justified, the identification of potential new cases that have had close contact with patients.  

Mobile App – COMVIDA

The INTERNET has become the largest tool for sharing information. It has a universal acceptance and is easily accessible by everyone. The mobile phone without internet access is a reality in all Cape Verdean families.

Besides the Website www.covid19.cv the project COMVIDA has the mobile application app.convid19.cv is available in three versions

• Web App (all Small Screens devices)
• | Android
•  IOS

Like the website, the citizens will be able to consult a series of information and also interact with health services, updating their health status by answering a self-diagnosis.

BackOffice – COMVida

BackOffice is the basis for work, management and monitoring of the situation by health entities that receive calls over the green line, or patients physically at the Units and have to record all the information for on-time monitoring.

Communication/Diffusion

The Accelerator Lab Cape Verde with the Ministry of Health, and the Prime Minister Cabinet made a  production of the COMVIDA website flyer and a promotional video of the COMVIDA application.

The video that has the Minister of Health and Social Security as protagonist will be socialized in social networks and National Television with the aim of getting people to use the application.

Final notes

Technologies can be an effective ally in combating epidemics that evolve through contagion. Accurate and effective information management enables timely diagnosis, timely awareness and propagation control. The record of evidence associated with a Business Intelligence system can save lives.

Links:

• Website www.covid19.cv
• APP  app.convid19.cv