ECDC, WHO develop new tool to access contact tracing programs

Brussels: In a key development, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) together with the World Health Organization (WHO) have developed a new tool to evaluate the effectiveness of contact tracing solutions on public health.

The tool, described as an indicator framework, will provide countries with a standardised approach for evaluating their use of digital proximity tracing solutions, and aid the national contact tracing strategies for Covid-19 as quoted by the ECDC statement issued on Monday.

"This new indicator framework offers countries a standardized approach to gather the evidence and assess the contribution that digital proximity tracing technology has made to large-scale contact tracing efforts for Covid-19," said Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat, director of the Division of Country Health Policies and Systems at WHO/Europe.

"We anticipate that it will become an invaluable tool," she added.

Countries have employed innovative technologies throughout the pandemic to support the implementation of public health and social measures.

Digital proximity tracing, by using smartphones or other devices to capture anonymised interactions between individuals and which would then issue alerts, emerged as a new means of support for contact tracing programs.

Vicky Lefevre, head of the ECDC Public Health Functions Unit, said that digital proximity tracing technology is a new tool for a new challenge.

It is vital to evaluate its public health effects in order to understand how best to use this technology right now as well as for future pandemics, Lefevre concluded