Perspective: COVID-19 Outbreak and Information Tools

On January 30, 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the Chinese outbreak of COVID-19 to be a public health emergency of international concern, posing a high risk to countries with vulnerable health systems. The emergency committee stated that the spread of COVID-19 may be interrupted by early detection, isolation, prompt treatment, and the implementation of a robust system to trace contacts [1]. Respiratory illness caused by the virus was fi rst identifi ed in Wuhan, a city in the Hubei province of China, on December 8, 2019 [2]. Evidence indicates that the patients were suffering from the infection of a novel betacoronavirus that was spreading worldwide at alarming rates despite drastic containment measures such as transportation restrictions, the cancellation of mass gatherings, social distancing, and lockdowns. The current situation resembles several other outbreaks of the last decade, including those of the 2009–2010 swine fl u (H1N1), the 2014 West African Ebola virus (EVD), the 2018–2020 Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) EVD, and the 2015–2016 Zika virus in Latin America [3]. COVID-19 is a new disease, and peoples’s awareness and knowledge are gradually Abstract


Information technologies to monitor and control the pandemic
The correlation coeffi cient of travellers and case detection data indicates that COVID-19 will remain a signifi cant threat.
The data are impacted by the airborne movement of people and are therefeore affected by the closure of fl ights and borders [5].
Data extracted from FLIRT (an online air travel dataset that uses information from 800 airlines to show direct fl ights and passengers' end destinations) for the month of January 2020 indicates that the African countries of Ethiopia, South Africa, Egypt, and Mauritius are at higher risk of transmission [5].
Electronic surveillance using web-based tools has proven to be of substantial value in reporting outbreaks of infectious disease. In response to this ongoing public health emergency, online interactive dashboards such as the ones provided by WHO, the Cen ter for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University, and HealthMap at Boston Children's Hospital, all of which visualize reported cases of the coronavirus in real time (Figure 1), are available [6][7][8][9]. with more than 2.6 million confi rmed cases and 181 thousand dead. The virus reached Africa later than other parts of the world, but it is anticipated that the emergency will impact African health and society durably. There is an urgent need for governments in low -income countries, including those in sub-Saharan Africa, to invest in improving their fragile health systems and for donors to support their preparedness efforts [3].
The fi rst case was registered in Egypt on February 14, 2020, and countries including Algeria, Senegal, South Africa, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Togo have been subsequently affected [3,6]. Clinical features of COVID-19 include dry cough, fever, diarrhea, vomiting, and myalgia. Individuals with multiple comorbidities are prone to severe infection [10]. The clinical diagnostic method used for COVID-19 is nucleic acid detection through nasal or throat swab sampling or other respiratory tract samplings using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The results of the swab sampling are confi rmed using next-generation sequencing [11]. It is critical to detect coronavirus early to prevent its spread within communities.
Spreading would trigger a number of cases that could overwhelm communities' treatment capacity, said Michel Yao, WHO Africa program manager for emergency operations [6].
Early detection, diagnostic testing, and isolation are three critical features of a successful response to the pandemic that would reduce its societal impact [12]. COVID-19 patients are stigmatized, and hospitals deserted for other pathologies due to fear for contaminations. As consequences numbers of death will not been declared and recorded in pandemic indicators data. Technology can play a critical role in underdeveloped countries through the development of geographic information system tools. Recording instances of fever during the COVID-19 pandemic would allow for geographic information progression (trajectories, travel), including real or near-realtime mapping, visualization, and prediction to detect hot spots.
The use of data and simulations to track and combat contagion has been considered by health professionals. Area detectors or mminiaturized "smart," "micro," and inexpensive family-, individual-, community-, and patient-thermometers, that are linked to the internet or paired to smartphone applications can warn individuals of local outbreaks better than other government tools [12]. The U.S. Health Weather Map, for example, is a visualization of seasonal illness linked to fever; namely, infl uenza-like illness. The aggregate, anonymized data visualized via the Health Weather Map is a product of Kinsa's network of smart thermometers and accompanying applied health geography mobile applications. Thus, this method could also be used to prevent second waves of diseases and to control endemic infectious diseases in low-income countries [13]. During infectious disease outbreaks and epidemics, social media play an important role in communicating verifi ed facts and proven prevention tips to the masses, but they also carry the risk of 'virally' spreading misinformation, confusion, and fear among the general public [14].  sources are observed highlighting that children and young adults are asymptomatic [15]. These later patients must not be included in fever visualizations studies and symptoms-based studies will miss cases but are a good indication of the outbreak progress. These indications must be followed by targeted cheap rapid testing.
China has developed the Close Contact Detector app/ platform, which uses big data collected from public authorities about the movement of people (public transport data covering fl ights and train travel, as well as disease case records) to determine whether a given user has had any close contact with a person confi rmed or suspected to have been infected in the recent past [16]. Based on advanced information technology and telemedicine and telehealth services, the" Medical Internet of Things" has experienced four major evolutions, including the development of wireless sensing technology, use of internet technology in clinical medicine, use of radio frequency identifi cation, and artifi cial intelligence applications, in realizing the Internet of Things medical model [17]. Lowincome countries will certainly lack structures for social distancing and isolation; thus, telemedicine and telehealth services that rely on the popularity of smartphones are necessary to encourage most people to quarantine themselves in their homes. The goals of the technological methods are to identify areas where illness levels are unusually high and investigate them, as well as to gauge whether the measures being taken are working to slow the spread. Other structural problems will arise, as most businesspeople in African cities consist of small, weak, disconnected units. Structural issues will be combined with fear and patient stigmatization.
Determining how to support and organize the most vulnerable populations in order to improve social distancing is a challenge.
In the context of a public health pandemic like this one, patient tracking via phone triangulation or cameras may be considered the most acute loss of privacy using technology. During a health crisis, governments must communicate crisis information effectively and effi ciently to members of the public. Failure to do so will inevitably lead citizens to become fearful, uncertain, and anxious about the prevailing conditions [18]. It will also increase the spread of misinformation and conjecture to the public. Trying to maintain a semblance of normality during this pandemic has required individuals to learn how to work remotely and hold meetings virtually [19]. The ability to use information technology will allow schools and universities as  [21]. In a context of COVID-19 outbreak public-private partnerships may be expended to alleviate issues such as the lack of interoperability of Digital Health solutions, poor power, high cost of the internet infrastructure or inadequate sustainable fi nancing [22]. Personal data confi dentiality issues are corelated to internet applications over the world. The question is how privacy must be preserved in a context of quick progressing crisis outbreak where for example airlines and offi ces are screening mass populations for fever.
Confi dentiality will remain of actuality and will found different solutions respectively to the type of government. Information tools are being used to help to monitor and control the spread of COVID-19. Low-income countries such as those in sub-Saharan Africa will benefi t from mastering geographic information tools and other technological services such as telehealth and telemedicine to gain control over the disease.