Mati goes digital for contact tracing

THE City Government of Mati in Davao Oriental has been tracking the location of people suspected and confirmed infected with the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) using a mobile application.

The mobile application Covid-19 Heat Map, which was developed by Artificial Intelligence PH (AI.PH) developer Al Francis Delagua, is being used by the Mati City Incident Management Team (IMT) for Covid-19 “to map out the locations of PUIs (patients under investigation), PUMs (persons under monitoring), and Covid-19 patients and give the City Government a clearer picture of the Covid-19 status.”

“The information would help the authorities monitor the movement of the PUIs, PUMs at the same time make the community aware of their locations for others to have self-awareness and take extra precautions,” Delagua said in a statement.

The mobile app shows a map scattered with colored-coded dots to represent an individual person.

The PUMs are colored yellow, orange for PUIs, red for people confirmed to be infected with Covid-19, green for those who have recovered, white for those who were cleared of the disease, and black for those who died caused by the virus.

In a message, Delagua explained that the ground personnel of the local government unit (LGU) such as the barangay health worker will collect and enter the information of the individuals, who may be infected by the disease, into the app and will automatically reflect in the systems of the IMT.

He said this will help the IMT in their measures to contain the virus such as the areas to disinfect or to ramp up the barriers.

The heat map can be accessed online but he said the complete information will only be available to the members of the IMT to protect the privacy of the PUIs, PUMs, and Covid-19 infected persons.

He also revealed that he plans to make it a shared heat map for all the areas in Davao Region.

“Our goal is a centralized database and heat map for all records. Karon pa lang man namo ni gipublic (We just recently made it public) but our team already recommended my app to Davao City through the Vice Mayor’s office,” he said.

Delagua said the officials of the Mati City Health Office had told him that the Department of Health in Davao Region (DOH) expressed interest in the mobile application.

“I’m expecting [for feedback] anytime this week since our Mayor [Michelle Rabat] wanted to push this to the whole Davao Region. We just need to test the efficiency here [in Mati City] first and so far, it is working naman,” he said.