IIT-Ropar student develops app that can help avoid coronavirus-hit locations

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The app prototype has been developed by Sahil Verma, under the supervision of Dr Puneet Goyal, faculty in computer science engineering. Union Minister The Minister of HRD Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank has also tweeted about this from his personal Twitter handle as an appreciation for the development.

“The existing approaches put the onus of responsibility of contact tracing and alerting/isolating the potential suspects on the government only, and are subjected to delays because of which, in most cases, the suspect has further spread the virus to many before being caught. This app, if implemented successfully, can timely alert and more efficiently control the spread,” the institute said.

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As infected patients’ location history data is provided and uploaded by authorities concerned, the app will use it and tell user’s proximity to infected patients and duration of contact period, after one connects it to the centralised server. As per the release, the app also provides web links to India and world stats of corona cases, list of COVID-19 testing labs and quick link to donate online in the PM CARES fund.

IIT-Ropar has also developed a supporting web application tool where users can mark the locations on map and mention the corresponding timings and duration. This also helps them to better visualise the patients’ location history on map which can further help in contact tracing.

As per the latest information by the Ministry of Health, the number of people infected by the virus in India has gone over 5,000. As many as 149 people have died  The global toll of infected individuals has crossed a million mark.