The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and Oracle partner
with African governments to manage large-scale vaccination programs
in the cloud – over 73,000 people vaccinated and registered
in the first 8 days in Ghana
LONDON and REDWOOD SHORES,
Calif., Nov. 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/
-- The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) and Oracle have brought
cloud technology to Africa to
manage public health programs. Initially, Ghana, Rwanda, and Sierra
Leone will use the new Oracle Health Management
System to create electronic health records for their
vaccination programs for yellow fever, HPV, polio, measles, and
COVID-19, as soon as that vaccine is distributed to Africa. TBI and Oracle are in discussions with
more than thirty other countries in Africa, Asia,
Europe, and North America that are evaluating using the
same cloud system to manage their COVID-19 vaccination
programs.
"Since February of this year, the Africa Union and Member States
have worked tirelessly together to address the impact of COVID-19
on the continent," said Dr. John Nkengasong, Director of the Africa
Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. "As the COVID-19
pandemic continues, partnerships such as this one with Oracle, TBI
and various governments are critical to the strengthening of Member
State public health institutions, not only to incorporate
innovative technology but to proactively and urgently harmonize the
collection and sharing of important testing data across the
continent."
TBI has been providing policy advice and hands-on support to
African governments as they tackle complex COVID-19
challenges. To address these challenges, TBI partnered with
Oracle to deliver cloud technology to digitize and unify national
health data starting with the management of vaccinations. The
Oracle Health Management System creates an electronic health record
in a cloud database for every person as they are vaccinated. This
highly-secure system can be quickly configured to interoperate with
each country's existing technology and meet their most stringent
data sovereignty requirements. Participating countries will have
access and support for the system, free of charge, for the next ten
years.
"This is an immensely exciting and potentially ground-breaking
initiative for recording information on all disease vaccinations
and treatments in African nations," said Tony Blair, Executive Chairman of TBI and the
former Prime Minister of Great
Britain and Northern
Ireland. "Though Africa has coped well with COVID-19, it
still needs to be part of international efforts to control the
disease, including for international travel. That means vaccination
of at least a significant portion of the population, requiring the
highest quality data system so that everyone's vaccine experience
is recorded. Oracle can provide that system with data securely
stored and owned by each country and is prepared to do so as part
of a global philanthropic partnership.
We will be living with COVID-19 for some years, and the
recording of data will be vital in managing its impact and
spread. And one thing is clear from this crisis: applying new
technology solutions has applications for the digitization of the
entire economy and is crucial for the acceleration of African
development. This initiative is a great test case, and my Institute
is proud to be part of it."
"The Oracle Health Management System is currently being
used by the U.S. government and large healthcare and research
organizations to monitor COVID-19 patient symptoms, responses to
treatments, and to screen volunteers for COVID-19 vaccine
clinical trials," said Oracle Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison. "By working with Tony and
his team over a period of a few months, we were able to deliver the
exact same 21st century cloud technology to Ghana, Rwanda, and Sierra
Leone. This is the first time vaccine data has been stored
in a cloud database on a national scale. Africa is leading the way."
Bringing Cloud Technology for Electronic Health Records to
Africa
Ghana is now using the system
to manage its yellow fever vaccine program and will follow with
COVID-19 once that vaccine is distributed in Africa.
Ghana President Nana Akufo-Addo
said, "We have learned many lessons from this pandemic. The most
obvious is that we have to urgently fortify our public health
systems. This strategic partnership with Oracle and TBI is evidence
of our drive to digitalize Ghana's
health systems for our people's benefit."
"The move from Ghana's current
paper-based vaccination campaign records to digital data
management using the Oracle platform will enable our data to be
easily accessible by authorized persons. The data will be more
secure, and there will be no worry about lost cards as people
travel," added Dr. Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, Expanded Programme on
Immunization, Ghana Health Service.
Hear more from Dr. Kwane Amponsa-Achiano at
https://bit.ly/3fntnZf.
Rwanda has prepared its system
to support its HPV vaccine administration as soon as secondary
schools reopen, with plans to support COVID-19 vaccinations and an
immunity pass for citizens in the future.
President of Rwanda, Paul
Kagame called for a resilient health system as the best defense
against future pandemics: "A COVID-19 vaccine will be a critical
tool, and Africa must be able to
access to its fair share of a vaccine once it is available. This
partnership will deliver an innovative digital vaccine e-registry
that signals the continent's readiness to deploy the vaccine and to
safely reopen our economies to trade and tourism."
Sierra Leone is preparing to
use the system to create digital vaccination records when its next
routine Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) campaign begins. EPI
is a global initiative to vaccinate for polio, diphtheria,
tuberculosis, pertussis, measles, and tetanus. It is estimated to
prevent two to three million childhood deaths globally each year
from these diseases. Sierra
Leone's EPI program reportedly covers 95% of eligible
children in that country.
Chief Innovation Officer and Minister of Education of
Sierra Leone, Dr. David Moinina
Sengeh, noted, "The Government of Sierra
Leone is committed to utilizing technology and innovation –
digitizing services to improve service delivery for its citizens.
Using our experience from Ebola, we were able to put together a
robust National COVID-19 Response plan, which has technology, data,
and innovation as core enablers. This collaboration with Oracle and
TBI is significant not only for dealing with COVID-19 and broader
health needs, such as EPI vaccinations but will be a key step in
our country's mission of digitization for all."
As countries begin vaccinating people for COVID-19, the Oracle
Health Management System can be used to automatically create an
electronic health record for every person vaccinated. Once
the COVID-19 vaccine is available, the Oracle Health Management
System will track immunizations and provide recipients with a
Digital Quick Response (QR) code. These QR codes will help
Africa reopen its borders and
economies by providing citizens the proof of immunization needed to
move freely for work and travel.
About the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change
TBI's
Government Advisory Practice directly supports leaders in
their on-the-ground fight against COVID-19, and our Policy Futures
unit is delivering analysis and advice to help countries mitigate
economic impact, source essential equipment, harness the power of
technology and position themselves for the rebuilding to come.
The tech revolution can be accelerated in Africa and other emerging and developing
countries, not only to deal with COVID-19, but also embedding
robust health care systems that will benefit citizens, and beyond
health, to digitize public services and the economy.
About Oracle
Oracle offers suites of
integrated applications plus secure, autonomous infrastructure in
the Oracle Cloud. For more information about Oracle (NYSE:
ORCL), please visit us at oracle.com.
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SOURCE Oracle