Simultaneously, different kinds of software and platforms were launched, contributing to the impressive achievements of Vietnam in the combat against Covid-19.

The cooperation between the Ministry of Information & Communications and the Health Ministry has resulted in the two healthcare support applications for both citizens and foreigners in Vietnam, namely ‘Ncovi’ and ‘Vietnam health declaration’ respectively.

Via these two programs, all people can conveniently report their current health status just as they enter the country by air. Thanks to these precious data, the healthcare system can discover the cases that need medical attention.

All information submitted through these applications is guaranteed for medical purposes only.

Until March 17, there were nearly 400,000 reports received via the online ‘Vietnam health declaration’ while the app ‘Ncovi’ was downloaded more than 500,000 times from app stores for both Android and iOS operation systems.

“Besides collecting valuable data for the healthcare system to handle emergency situations, Ncovi is a useful channel to deliver all formal medical notices and announcements to citizens so that they can adjust their activities accordingly and effectively”, said Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long.

On April 18, Bluezone – an app aiming at protecting the community against Covid-19, developed by Bkav – was officially released. This is a breakthrough in implementing Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology to locate a person precisely.

Smartphones with BLE installed can communicate with one another within a 2-meter range, signaling a close contact with the corresponding time and duration. Therefore, in case there is a Covid-19 infected person (an F0), his or her contact history will be used by the Bluezone monitoring system to deliver warnings to all who have had a high risk after communicating with this F0.

Bluezone was introduced when Covid-19 was spread unconsciously in the community, so it helped people to raise their awareness and more effectively prevent the virus from multiplying among them.

On May 5, Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) launched a website to evaluate the Covid-19 safety status of an organization according to approved criteria sets for specific fields (https://antoandn.tphcm.gov.vn), along with the app ‘An Toan DN’ for both Android and iOS operation systems.

Deputy Director of HCMC Department of Information and Communications Vo Thi Trung Trinh stated that these two programs can be used by businesses, organizations, household businesses to self-evaluate their own Covid-19 safety, while HCMC Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control is able to collect data for the comprehensive Covid-19 safety picture in the whole city.

“As the number of declaration via these applications is not high yet, state offices in HCMC are going to encourage businesses and organizations to make better use of them on their way to enter the phase of ‘new normal status’ in Vietnam where the tasks of socio-economic development and Covid-19 fights must happen simultaneously”, said Ms. Trinh. SGGP

Thanh Tam