Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Ebute-Metta in partnership with the PharmAccess Foundation has launched Luscii – a COVID19 screening digital service.
This innovative digital service, Luscii, screens for COVID-19 symptoms and connects users to dedicated medical responders for advice on how to manage their care.
The Covid19 digital service triggers users to conduct daily checks and monitors the symptoms based on Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC)guidelines via the digital service platform, including body temperature, presence of cough, headaches, and more.
Njide Ndili, country director, PharmAccess Foundation, during her opening remarks noted that the COVID Connect digital service will help users self-monitor and connect those who fall within the high-risk category to trained medical responders at FMC Ebute Metta for counselling and triage into Lagos State Covid response system.
According to her, benefits derived by use of the digital service include early detection of suspected cases for testing and containment, enabling home isolation and care for mild cases thus freeing up healthcare capacity for high-risk patients and allowing the State to maximize its resources for patients with more acute symptoms.
Adedamola Dada, chief medical director, FMC, expressed his enthusiasm to support the Lagos State response to contain the spread of Covid by partnering with PharmAccess by providing medical responders housed within Covid Connect Call Center and to flatten the curve by reducing the surge of patients visiting healthcare facilities. He added that the FMC will continue to work with partners towards the containment of the virus.
Jan van Weijen, Consul General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, who was present during the launch congratulated the Lagos State Government and PharmAccess foundation on the launch of the Covid Connect digital service. According to him, the digital service will help in the fight against COVID19 in Nigeria and the government of the Netherlands would continue to support the Nigerian government in their fight against the COVID19 pandemic.
Similarly, Akin Abayomi , commissioner of Health Lagos State, during his speech added that the digital service platform could help support Lagos State’s fight against the COVID19 virus and is looking forward to reviewing the benefits with a consideration of integrating them into the State’s response system.
A live demonstration of the digital service platform and tour of the Covid Connect call center was conducted by Ademola Serrano, the Health innovations manager at PharmAccess Foundation who reiterated that this digital service has been successfully deployed in several other countries.
Serrano demonstrated the download and signup process and subsequently explained the process for triaging of suspected Covid patients identified by the digital service. Such users will be contacted by the medical responders and transported to Lagos State approved testing, isolation and treatment facilities.
