In a move meant to eliminate the issuing of fake COVID-19 certificates, the Ministry of Health and Child Care has developed a barcoding system which is expected to start working this week.
The system will be connected to all laboratories at all the country’s ports of entry and it will be able to confirm the identity and results of every person who has tested for coronavirus instantaneously.
Director for Informatics in the Ministry of Health and Child Care Dr Simukai Zizhou explained:
We have started with Robert Gabriel Mugabe Airport, where the system is already in use. We expect that by end of next week, all ports of entry will be online while all laboratories should also be able to feed the information into this database
We have now started working on it with the laboratories. We have used what we call the Laboratory Information Management System.
When a sample is sent to the lab, it is barcoded. It then speaks to the Electrical Health Records or IMPILO, which is the trademark for the Electronic Health Records.
Once it is connected to IMPILO, all ports of entry will be connected to it. So you can simply enter the barcode into our system for verification.
SADC Covid Testing (SCT) representative Martin Gondo, whose organisation is working in partnership with the Government, said:
When we are done with testing, we input all the results and information of the patient into the system, including their photo, and at the ports of entry, the code is scanned and all the details will come out.
Several people have been arrested in the past for selling bogus COVID-19 certificates while some laboratories have been accused of altering positive coronavirus test results.