This archive report was first published on 17 June 2020.
As the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed close to half a million lives globally, Kenyan innovators are working tirelessly to find local solutions to the crisis.
On June 17, 2020, three Kenyan researchers, biochemist Donatus Njoroge, IT expert Gideon Kamau, and medical doctor Jesse Gitaki, unveiled a contact tracing system dubbed 'KoviTrace' that provides access to all the persons a patient came into contact with in the last 14 days.
The system, which has a back-end system for administrators and a front-end system for users, also provides users with access to the World Health Organization's (WHO) frequently asked questions about the disease and a self-screening test that gauges the user's vulnerability to the disease.
According to Mr. Njoroge, the system can be used by the Ministry of Health to trace all persons that COVID-19 patients came into contact with, and by Kenyans to establish if they have been in contact with persons who tested positive.
“Once an individual has tested positive, a Ministry of Health official will only be required to key in his phone number onto the web portal and command it to trace all his contacts within the last 14 days instead of relying on his word of mouth,” explained Mr. Njoroge.
The system also sends an alert to all the persons that the patient came into contact with, containing information on preventive measures, contacts of the nearest hospital, and the emergency toll-free numbers of the respective county COVID-19 coordinator.
