A mobile phone-based approach to cross–border disease surveillance can be instituted wherein all travel pre-requisites are not only storable in an individual’s digital travel wallet but also acceptable as sufficient proof of a clean bill of health.
Recently, I experienced overtly laborious cross–border travel between Kenya and Uganda. Pre – COVID-19, such a traverse would cost me about 30 minutes. This particular one took 3 hours; due to an additional layer of cross–border COVID – 19 disease surveillance imposed on travelers by the ministries of health of the two countries.
The prescribed process flow for travelers is this: first, travelers present themselves to a temperature screening desk (notwithstanding that COVID-19 disease currently highly unlikely presents with fever).
They then must produce a printed copy of negative COVID – 19 PCR test result which is verified using QR code reader (notwithstanding that PCR’s are expensive and that a negative COVID-19 PCR test does not entirely preclude the presence of COVID-19 disease and also that rapid tests are cheaper but can serve the same screening function).
The travelers are also asked to present a paper-based international certificate of vaccination to prove Yellow Fever vaccination. In the event a traveler lacks any of these pre-requisites, as many did, they are left to the mercies of the port health staff to decide whether they should proceed with the journey or not. You can guess the common financial criterion that is applied here!
After this procedural nightmare, the traveler presents to the immigration desk wherein they are asked to reproduce the exact same documents as part of the clearance process (notwithstanding that one of the common avenues for transmitting COVID-19 disease is through contaminated fomites or surfaces such as through a numerous exchange of documents).
Having survived this melee, I found myself brainstorming on how technology can help smoothen cross–border disease surveillance. One obvious approach is harnessing the power of mobile telephony. We are in an era of intense mobile telephony penetration in Africa and a global community that is rapidly gallivanting towards digitalization of everything (DoE).
Therefore, a mobile phone-based approach to cross–border disease surveillance can be instituted wherein all travel pre-requisites are not only storable in an individual’s digital travel wallet but also acceptable as sufficient proof of a clean bill of health. This would greatly reduce the current cross-border travel pain – points.
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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
