The regional office of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) rolled out two surveillance and monitoring systems to help cities and municipalities in the Mimaropa region make science-based and data-driven actions to successfully cope with the impacts of the coronavirus disease.
The system called FASSSTER (Feasibility Analysis of Syndromic Surveillance Using Spatio-Temporal Epidemiological Modeler for Early Detection of Diseases) and TanodCOVID were designed to help localities effectively manage the contagion of the COVID-19, Athena Colline L. Verdey of DOST-regional office said in an email.
“FASSSTER is a web-based surveillance application used to create predictive models and forecast number of Covid-19 infections including confirmed positive cases, deaths, and recoveries in an area over a certain period. This application aims to help local government units (LGUs) assess possible scenarios of the pandemic at a national, regional and local level and make informed decisions about preventive measures that can be applied in their respective jurisdiction,” she explained.
TanodCOVID, on the other hand, is an SMS-based reporting system that facilitates contact tracing.
“TanodCOVID, an adjunct of FASSSTER, is a short message service (SMS)-based platform that provides households a means to determine potential COVID-19 cases by privately reporting symptoms of family members to LGUs or barangay health units. TanodCOVID helps LGUs obtain vital information that can be used for contact tracing purposes and in identifying the extent of cases and incidents in an area,” Verdey further explained.
The Mimaropa Regional Task Force for COVID-19 has approved the adoption of the technology that will be cascaded to the different towns and cities in Mimaropa.
The DOST said that as of July 2020, a total of 64 frontliners from 39 LGUs were trained in epidemiological surveillance of Covid-19 using the said applications. Since April 2020, a total of seven training activities, online and on-site were conducted, which included various demonstrations by trainers from DOST-Mimaropa. Their regional personnel will assist and train LGUs on FASSSTER and TanodCOVID.