As prevention and eradication of the deadly coronavirus from the Country remain a paramount concern of the Ministry of Health (MoH) and government, the Ministry on Wednesday, July 15, 2020 adopted a digital innovation named ‘Passport Covid’ to strengthen its capacity in the fight against the global pandemic. Passport Covid is a digital identity assigns to each citizen a status among six (6) values (Positive, Negative, Cured, Pending Result, expired test, to be Repeated) through USSD technology—a standard for transmitting information over GSM signaling channels. It is also accessible on all categories of phones (Android, iOS and a web portal) and can be integrated with all mobile operators. The application does not record the movements of the phone and therefore, respects the privacy of its users.
While adopting the solution at the Ministry, Liberia’s Health Minister Dr. Wilhelmina Jallah called on Liberians to take advantage of the process to get quick access to their results.
“we are adopting this new exercise so as to allow people access their own information when it is released”, she disclosed.
Minister Jallah encourages users of the solution to dial *303# in order to access their test results without physical contact: “Now, the Liberian population can access the USSD code by dialing *303# to benefit from the services offered by the application to curb the spread of the coronavirus in Liberia.” Dr. Jallah expressed thanks to partners, including Zero Poor Africa, MTN, Orange and Healthcare Federation of Liberia for their contribution towards the success of the project.
In remarks, Banki Technology SAS CEO, Mamadou Bah, said the new solution can detect automatic notification of suspected cases, and trace people checked at the dams: “This is meant to trace people who want to bypass the system.”
The digital innovation offers to the Ministry by a Guinean IT company (Banki Technology SAS), facilitates the rendering of COVID-19 test results, eliminates the risk of falsification of test results or travel documents as well as enforces controls at the level of the sanitary at the various borders. It also locates screening and care centers, and provides statistics
Signed: Felecia Gbesioh, Director of Communications, MoH
