In the past few weeks, airports and other major ports of entry around the world have become the new frontiers of care and response in the fight against COVID-19. Many countries have imposed travel restrictions, and implemented stringent surveillance at airports to detect travelers with suspected COVID-19 infections and trigger quarantine and follow-up measures to contain the spread of the disease within their borders.
As Medic Mobile accompanies our Ministry of Health partners in their response efforts, the need for support in surveillance activities at ports of entry has emerged as a strategic priority for many health systems. Based on their needs, this was one of the first areas we started to work on.
In partnership with the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) in Nepal, we designed and launched a port of entry surveillance app powered by the Community Health Toolkit to enroll all incoming travelers entering Nepal through Kathmandu Airport, facilitating more effective screening of COVID-19 as well as follow up for travelers advised to self-quarantine. The app we designed and built adheres to MoHP and WHO guidelines for the detection and management of ill travelers suspected to have COVID-19 at ports of entry.
This is an open-source app that could support health officials at ports of entry engage in screening and link to contact tracing and other use cases. Here’s the demo video (3 min 30 sec).
To read more about the development of this app and our response in Nepal, please go to our most recent blog post co-authored by @shreya and @sudip.
We would love the feedback of the CHT community on how to best integrate this port of entry surveillance app into other related use cases during early stages of the epidemic?
- How can we best link screening to contact tracing and home based quarantine measures?
- How can we adapt port of entry screening to other community-based screening for early detection and containment of COVID-19?
- Who are the users best positioned to engage in screening and how can we ensure their safety and protection during this outbreak?
If you have comments, questions, and/or suggestions, we would love to hear from you below!