Telkom subsidiary BCX has teamed up with the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) to develop an automated platform that synchronises data on COVID-19 in wastewater for early detection.
This comes as the NICD recently detected the new Omicron sub-variant BA.4 in wastewater in south-western Johannesburg.
According to the South African Medical Research Council, tracking of wastewater is an important public health strategy to combat COVID-19 in a cost-effective manner, as it plays a key role in the development of early warning systems.
BCX says it leveraged its expertise in technology, data science and insights to find a solution that could support the work of the NICD.
The company notes that as COVID-19 infections are continuing to climb around the country, the tracking of wastewater trends has become critical, as it assists in pinpointing hotspots that are seeing an upsurge in infections.
Jonas Bogoshi, BCX CEO, says the platform developed by his company is an intelligent dashboard that digitises and automatically synchronises data on SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater, assisting NICD with early detection.
The platform, Bogoshi says, is based on global experience that suggests the levels of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater mirrors the levels of infection in the immediate community.
“By providing health decision-makers with up-to-date scientific insights, they are now empowered to make smart and prompt decisions, aimed at protecting the public. BCX’s intelligent, publicly accessible dashboard centralises the data that can effectively track SARS-CoV-2 wastewater levels nationally,” says Bogoshi.
“BCX is proud to partner with the NICD on tracking and monitoring the spread of the COVID-19 virus across the nation and to identify new variants. The smart insights dashboard pulls essential health and virus data streams together into a cohesive platform to deliver insights that are relevant and essential in managing infections.”
The platform is designed to be public-facing and allows the public to immediately assess the risk factors in their region.
“The use of intuitive technology in this unique way is a compelling glimpse of what’s possible when we apply innovation, science and human ingenuity to a very real problem that affects all South Africans,” says Bogoshi.
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