Are you looking for a hospital? Get some oxygen? New apps in Venezuela face coronavirus coup

The app displays a filterable list of establishments with their respective numbers, confirmed by its creator and other contributors, in four states, though it hopes to complement the rest of the country.

“In an emergency, we want to solve quickly (…), the application is great because it saves you time,” says María Ramos, 30-year-old chemical engineer from Puerto La Cruz, Anzoátegui. “You click on pharmacies, for example, and it sends you to the call function and that’s it.”

Docti.App has authorized María search for drugs and oxygen tubes in the middle of “runs runs”, for her sixtieth mother infected with covid-19 in April.

In search of medicine and oxygen

Long queues form in Venezuela to refill oxygen cylinders, which cost $ 30 (equivalent to nine minimum incomes), used to provide home care for people with covid-19.

Chronic power outages in Anzoátegui and other provinces made it difficult to set up the app: “The internet is unstable” and “the power goes out and I was left in the air,” Toyo explains.

Without funding, you work alongside the users providing updates.

José Miguel Avendaño browses a map of Venezuela displayed, with colored dots, on one of the two curved monitors connected to his PC.

He zooms in until he reaches La Candelaria, the central area where he lives in Caracas, he clicks a red dot and a box opens with information about a nearby hospital. And finally, says Avendaño, “there is Google Maps”, which shows you the most efficient route.

Javenda, its web application, is an interactive directory that connects its users to Google Maps to get to overcrowded health centers quickly.

Questionable data

This country of 30 million inhabitants has accumulated more than 220,000 infections and some 2,500 deaths from covid, according to official data released by the regime of Nicolás Maduro.

But organizations like Human Rights Watch reject official reports and say the real figure could be much higher.

Instead of criticizing and regretting this situation, let me try to resolve it, Avendaño thought.

The 46-year-old data scientist collected official and private information from 1,020 health centers and placed it on a map accessible via a link. It took him three days to develop.

He hopes to feed the map with data from third parties such as Daniel Torres, a programmer, who gave him information about health centers in the state of Carabobo (north), where he lives.

“Why can’t we collaborate on an initiative like this? I think this is a good way to counter the advance of covid-19, ”he says.

Safety in closed places

With her mobile phone, Rebeca Paredes scans a QR code and a lotus flower appears with the word Nezha.

This is the logo of a prototype application on biosafety and industrial security measures that Rebeca developed with her partner Wanda Tremont, both aged 16, led by a global competition for young people.

It was designed “to see the safety of establishments, what measures and what standards they respect: what permits they have, what is their capacity, their space dimensions, the emergency exits”, lists Rebeca.

While Wanda presses the buttons on the computer, Rebeca navigates through different tabs.

The boxes and bars seem to be filled by your future users: the traders and their customers.

“Sometimes you go out and whoever sells you has a mask on their chin. These are things you think: (…) Would it be really safe to buy in this place?” Rebeca asked, looking out of his apartment window at the popular Caracas 23 de Enero neighborhood.

Connection issues

Wanda, a slim young woman with a dark complexion, regrets the connection difficulties.

With controlled rates, telephone companies are struggling to maintain their networks.

Rebeca and Wanda are targeting external funding and state alliances to promote their project, which they hope will be downloadable through PlayStore.

Source: AFP

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