COVID-19 Data Tracking and Analysis service platform

Background COVID-19 represents a unique and unprecedented threat to both Africa and humanity.For any strategies or policies to be effective against COVID, they must be based on significant, actionable data. In addition, there must be an effective two-way information and communication channel accessible to the majority of the population. The digital channels (Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Websites) provide a valuable and necessary mechanism for communication, information gathering, and data visualization. However, mobile penetration rates (% of population) in Africa are currently around 45%. Digital channels which require 3G/4G/Smartphone/Internet penetration is at slightly more than 50% of mobile penetration or just 25% of the population. Therefore, even utilizing the entire mobile network, less than half of the African population could be reached directly through this mechanism. In order to ensure inclusiveness, reaching those in the bottom half of the pyramid, as well as many of the most vulnerable, using “digital” channels will not be enough. The majority of those that can be reached electronically will be done via 2G, SMS, USSD/Short Codes and Interactive Voice Response (IVR). The African COVID-19 Communications & Information Platform (ACCIP) ECA, Africa CDC and partners are championing an African COVID-19 Communications and Information Platform (ACCIP). The platform will provide intelligent information to National COVID Task forces, respective ministries, and international development organizations, including allocation to implement COVID responses and actions, as well as inform data driven allocation of resources to mitigate and suppress the health and economic impact of COVID in Africa. The platform integrates public data from digital channels and online sources such as social media, with mobile narrowband information gathering via short codes (*xxx#) and interactive voice response (IVR). This unique approach combines the depth of online digital information, which reaches 23% of Africans, with the extensive reach of mobile, which touches more than 600 million Africans. Information gathering and targeted communication is performed on behalf of authorized users to meet the requirements of the National COVID task-forces, Ministries of Health, WHO, CDC Africa, Health NGO’s, inter-ministerial task-forces, and select Public-Private Partnerships Many different information and communication initiatives are already underway by national and international entities. Indeed, some of the components laid out here are already in an advanced stage of planning or roll-out. However, a framework to properly leverage and coordinate the combination of online broadband and mobile broadband for the most effective efforts to combat the virus has not yet manifest. Objectives The prime objective of the platform is to ease information and communication process at national and regional level for supporting efficient response to curbing the impact of the pandemic. The platform would collect, and analyse, non-personally identifiable big data using machine learning and artificial intelligence to answer critical questions and give valuable insights. Policymakers could ask critical questions, including how well COVID prevention practices are understood, what are the current key COVID misconceptions, when was the last time the household had a meal, and when was the last time the primary wage earner received money. Survey and information collection, both directly from citizens, as well by health and social workers, is also supported. In order for the platform to function effectively, a timely and efficient collection, treatment and analysis of the data is critical. As a result, the ACIP platform aspires to identify and engage a data ingestion and analytics platform that could jointly function with the ACIP platform.