Officials of GHS, MoH and KT unveiled the GEPP App in a short ceremony in Accra.
A new mobile health application aimed at preventing the transmission of infectious diseases by alerting users to be aware of potential infection has been launched.
The Global Epidemic Prevention Project (GEPP) app, developed under the GEPP, will provide users with the nearest hospital information and allow them report their symptoms to the health authority.
GEPP is a collaborative initiative between the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and Korean Telecom (KT) which seeks to strengthen the capacity of governance on disease surveillance to prevent the transmission of infectious disease in all parts of the country.
Dr. Ebenezer Odame, Director of Policy Planning and Evaluation (PPME) at the Ministry of Health (MOH), who launched the GEPP app, said the African region had experienced over 100 disease outbreaks in recent times which had had dire consequences on health and trade.
“According to the United Nations Development Group, the West African sub-region lost over USD 3.6 billion annually between 2014 and 2017 due to closing of boarders, flight cancellation and reduced foreign direct investments,” he said.
Dr. Odame stated that though there has been an improvement in the country’s level of emergency preparedness, the threat of highly infectious pathogens being transmitted across the country was still active.
He therefore thanked the Korean government and its partners for supporting Ghana to improve on its preparedness towards health security by strengthening its diseases surveillance within and across its borders.
He said the health sector would leverage on the technology to detect, prevent and quickly respond to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases with epidemic and pandemic potential
Dr, Odame further called on the public to not only download the app but actively use it as it could only become useful when people actively engage the App.
Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare, Director General of the GHS said the app would collect information to build a strong national public health system to maintain active surveillance of disease and public health events.
“It would rapidly investigate reports, assess public health risk, share information to allow the implementation of public health control measures at national level and also warn citizens of local and seasonal diseases,” he said.
Dr Dongmyun Lee, President, Future Platform Business Group of Korean Telecom, said the app will simultaneously inform the GHS of nationals travelling to epidemic-prone countries or, local areas.
The app according to him, the GEPP app will provide information on disease information, and prevention measures to users for pre-response during their stay in connected areas.
The app can be downloaded for use on android and IOS smart phones.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri and Rhodaline Naa Adjeley King