Help for developing countries: WHO launches its own corona app

The WHO would like to publish a Corona app later this month. It is designed to help poor countries fight the pandemic through information, but developers are also considering incorporating contact tracing.

Germany, Great Britain and other countries want to publish corona apps soon, with which infection chains can be traced. Other countries such as Singapore or Taiwan already use such tracing apps. However, many other countries in the world have no way of developing such applications. The World Health Organization (WHO) would like to help you in May with its own corona app.

According to Reuters, several developers have been working on the app for several weeks, some of whom have already worked for Google or Microsoft. The application will be available for Android and iOS worldwide, the open source code will be accessible to everyone via GitHub.

First of all, the application should be there to help users with information by, among other things, querying symptoms and, in the event of a possible infection, showing how and where one can be tested. Additional help such as psychological counseling should be added. For implementation, countries have the option of adapting the app according to their own requirements. The WHO plans to issue instructions in the coming week.

Be careful with the tracing function

The WHO app does not initially contain contact tracking. Legal and privacy issues prevented the WHO from doing so for the time being, says her press spokesman Bernardo Mariano. He fears that the function could be misused to make money with user data.

However, the WHO developers have already spoken to Google and Apple to possibly implement their decentralized concept, in which, apart from anonymous IDs, no data should leave the smartphones. But before you install a tracing function, you want to be sure that you can rule out all possible risks, says Mariano.

In addition to the general Corona app, WHO also plans to launch an app for healthcare workers next week. It is intended to provide information on protective equipment and hygiene and to provide further advice on how to deal with the virus.

. (tagsToTranslate) Technology (t) Corona Crisis (t) Corona Viruses (t) Sars-Cov-2 (t) Apps (t) iOS Apps (t) Android Apps (t) Apple (t) Google (t) World Health Organization