Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, has launched a an app that encourages people to behave safely if someone in their family or community catches Covid-19.

MSF launched the app in association with software developer Pixel Impact.

Development Diaries understands that the concept for the app came from a quiz challenge game developed by MSF in 2019 during the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Users of the Covid Challenge app are presented with a range of colourfully illustrated scenarios and given a choice of ways to respond.

The topics covered are practical and wide-ranging, including how to interact with someone with Covid symptoms, how to share a bathroom when self-isolating, and how to handle food to minimise the risk of spreading the virus.

MSF Medical Innovation Coordinator Abiy Tamrat said, ‘We hope to attract a young, tech-savvy generation of users who will engage with the game as an entertaining challenge and at the same time acquire useful knowledge that will induce changes in behaviour.

‘Misinformation and rumours are also widespread about Covid and our aim with the app is to prevent this’, MSF quoted Tamrat as saying.

‘It worked for Ebola and we hope it will work for Covid too. The health messages presented in the app are based on MSF medical protocols and World Health Organisation recommendations.

One feature on the app reads the quiz questions out loud, so it can be used by people with a visual impairment or who cannot read.

It is understood that the app is currently available in English, French, Arabic and Spanish, and there are plans to introduce additional languages.

Tamrat envisages that the Covid Challenge app will be used by families and communities across the 70-plus countries worldwide where MSF works.

Source: MSF

Photo source: MSF