Under surveillance

Under surveillance

The South African government may soon be able to track and trace people that have come into contact with individuals who have tested positive for COVID-19, through a digital platform.

The Trace Track Digital Response (TTDR) system is designed specifically for government use. It enables the assignment of an anonymous ‘hashtag identification’ of an infected person to provide the government with information of who is sick, where they have been and who has subsequently been exposed to an infected person over the prior two weeks, as reported by Engineering News.

The same system is being successfully used in South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.

‘The key to containing any epidemic is identifying individuals who are infected, isolating them and tracking down their contacts,’ according to a statement by Kekkelbek Solutions, the special purpose vehicle behind the system.

Through the use of analytics, big data and AI, the system is also able to predict potential hot spots.

2 June 2020
Image: Gallo/Getty Images

Article written by