A Ghanaian geospatial company has offered N5million worth of software and technical support in rendering Geographic Information System (GIS) solutions to combat COVID-19 spread in Nigeria.
Speaking with newsmen on Thursday, Mrs Akua Aboabea-Aboah, the Managing Director of the company noted that the effort is part of the corporate social responsibility of the company to assist Nigeria in the fight against COVID-19.
She explained that since the first case of COVID-19, health organisations, responders of all types, and individuals want to have quality information on the evolutions of COVID-19 spread.
She said that scientifically, such information requires geographical data and analysis to arrive at relevant facts and figures.
Aboabea-Aboah observed that GIS technology is inevitably required in every location intelligence solution and consequent to this, the company, Sambus Geospatial Limited, has been offering support to government agencies, health departments, non-profit organisations and industries monitoring COVID-19.
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This, she said is by using complementary software resources provided by Environmental System Research Institute (ESRI) to build dashboards which gives essential geographic data to monitoring COVID-19 in Nigeria.
According to her, the operations dashboard created by Sambus Nigeria has been adopted by the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) representing COVID-19 data across Nigeria.
She added that the company ensures that ESRI’s Disaster Response Programme (DRP) is well leveraged on in the country’s region by providing resource donations, training, and technical support to organisations as part of her Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
Aboabea-Aboah noted that this enables the maximisation of location intelligence across the country using GIS applications to efficiently proffer solutions that facilitate decision making in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The platform designed by Sambus Nigeria features data from NCDC, WHO, among other authorities which is quickly integrated and visualised in real-time with specific attributes of varying locations.
“This is affected in a GIS application known as ArcGIS and represented in an
Operations Dashboard that enables public access to COVID-19 spatial data.
“Data represented include infected locations, number of reported cases, active and recovered cases as well as deaths across Nigeria,” she said.
She reiterated that real-time locational data is how we will know where exactly the disease was recorded, maintain an
accurate assessment of contact tracing and curb the spread of COVID-19 quickly so the world can be rid of this pandemic.
Also speaking, Miss Esther Moore, also reaffirmed the company’s position in offering geospatial support and assistance to organizations at the frontline and in encouraging them to continue to use location intelligence in their fight against the virus.
She said this is through innovative reporting platforms that can be used to analyse and cross-reference symptom reports based on location for easier testing.
According to her, Sambus Nigeria represents the country office of Sambus Geospatial Limited with its headquarter in Ghana.