MONITORING Iloilo’s contact- tracing application is a model in containing spread of COVID-19. —CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
ILOILO CITY—The Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) has cited the grassroots-driven COVID-19 contact tracing and isolation app of the Iloilo provincial government as the best among the provinces in the country.
It declared Iloilo champion for its Reverse Isolation and Contact Tracing Application (RIsC TrAp) in the provincial category for best COVID-19 pandemic response at the 2020 Digital Governance Awards held online on Dec. 11.
Travel history
Conceptualized by Gov. Arthur Defensor Jr. and designed by the province’s Information and Communication Technology Management Office, the app involves the creation of a centralized database system of residents established and maintained at the barangay level.
The web-based database enables barangay officials to track the travel history of residents, and control the entry and exit of people in their village.
It includes information of residents, where they work or conduct business, and records of travel to areas with large concentrations of people, including shopping malls, fish ports, government offices, banks, and public gatherings.
Launched on Sept. 29, the RIsC TrAp involves a five-step process starting with residents filling out a travel declaration card.
Community-based
The card is submitted to barangay health emergency response teams or village officials who will, in turn, encode the data online. The data is consolidated in the web-based app, which guides barangay officials to track and monitor residents who tested positive for the disease, or those exposed to infected persons.
Suzette Mamon, provincial administrator who gave Iloilo’s response during the awarding program, said the app system helped the province monitor and trace residents exposed to COVID-19.
“This is a community-based and a grassroots-based application and response, and we hope that with this, we will now be transitioning into the ‘new normal’ come next year,” she said.
Iloilo is under a modified general community quarantine. As of Dec. 13, it had recorded 2,770 cases with 178 considered active. It had recorded 2,494 recoveries and 97 deaths. INQ