Dr. Umar Saif proposes the use of cutting edge practices to combat the spread of Coronavirus

Pakistani computer scientist, Dr. Umar Saif, urged higher authorities in Pakistan and worldwide to adopt cutting edge practices as Coronavirus spreads vigorously throughout Pakistan and takes hospitals and health staff under pressure.

In a Tweet on Thursday, Saif shared a picture of the six-step process that he proposes can combat the spread of COVID-19. The approach uses mobile phone technology to track and identify probable Coronavirus patients. This can allow fast detection of the virus and thus providing medical services to probable patients before severe symptoms arise.

“My proposal on how to use technology for tracking and containing the Corona outbreaks in a targeted approach without inundating the hospitals,” Saif said in the tweet.

According to the plan outlined in the picture attached above, call data records (CDRs) of the diagnosed patients should be used to track their interaction over the past 2 weeks and thus identify probable patients of the virus who could have been infected due to meeting with them. This can also give us the locations that the patient has visited in the specified time and we can find everyone who was at that place with them.

After identifying these people, the nest step would be to contact them in order to advise social distancing, keep track of their symptoms, and ask them to come in immediately for COVID-19 tests. This approach can help identify Coronavirus patients more effectively and may limit the spread of the disease if treated immediately, as per the instructions of digital health experts.