The new service, which is free-to-use, provides a central source of services for the enrolled patients in the programme, along with accurate, trustworthy and up-to-date information about COVID-19 related to home isolations for everyone who want to request the information in the UAE.
The smart service is an automated “Chatbot” service, which will allow citizens to get answers to the most common questions about COVID-19 and home isolation recommendations from the DoH Abu Dhabi round-the-clock.
“We continue to focus our efforts on the current health crisis to curb the spread of COVID-19 and maintain the health and wellbeing of all members of the community. Through this service, we always strive to employ all possible means to support the patients and provide them and the wider community with reliable and timely healthcare services to keep them safe and healthy,” said Dr. Jamal Mohammaed Al Kaabi, Acting Under-Secretary of the DoH Abu Dhabi.
Ramez Shehadi, Managing Director, Facebook MENA, commented, “At difficult times like these, people use WhatsApp more than ever to connect with and support their friends, family and communities. We are pleased to be able to provide [name of ministry] with the communications tools to help them respond to citizens’ questions about the virus with reliable and timely health advice, to keep people safe.”
To use the free COVID-19 Home Isolation Program smart service on WhatsApp, simply save the number +97124193399 in your phone contacts and then text the word [Hi] in a WhatsApp message to get started. A set of menu options is then presented which the user can choose from and then be sent relevant guidance from DoH Abu Dhabi as well as links to https://doh.gov.ae/covid-19 for further information.
“The Department of Health Abu Dhabi and Abu Dhabi Public Health Center has built on the WhatsApp Business API, using the Novomind iAGENT digital platform from WhatsApp Business Solution Providers,” said Hossam Amer, Managing Director of Novomind, in the Middle East and North Africa.
Several health ministries and NGOs around the world are already running Coronavirus health information lines on WhatsApp, including the World Health Organisation.
source: politicaluprising
