A Senior High School (SHS) graduate who developed an application that allows patients to buy medication without visiting the pharmacy, says he has invented a COVID-19 "self-checker" chatbot app.

Mustapha Zaidan and his team developed the technology named ‘Abbey’ which enables individuals to quickly determine if they may have the virus.

Mustapha explained that it would reduce the burden on health officials attending to people at medical facilities to better understand the seriousness of symptoms. 

"It’s important to note, however, that Abbey is not intended to diagnose any possible conditions, including COVID-19 infections," he says.

There are other aspects of the app that educate the public on the new coronavirus, its symptoms and preventive measures.

When the bot is launched, it will ask you a series of questions to determine whether your symptoms require immediate medical attention.

Mustapha said they are working around the clock to strengthen their technology to improve disease surveillance, early detection and track the spread of the outbreaks, especially COVID-19 among others.

In 2019, Mustapha's team developed a technology, known as FastRx, which connects patients with pharmacies where they can have medication delivered to them at home.

Hundreds of subscribers, especially university students, at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology, are already hooked on to the app.

FastRx is revolutionising how people take and manage their medications by pre-sorting in personalised packets, with drug potency, dates, time and dosage.

It also signs up patients with chronic conditions and connects them to the right doctor for care and advice.

 It took Mustapha and his colleague about three years to develop FastRx app to simplify the process of organising and taking medication on time.

Amidst difficulty to get people to sign up, Zaidan and Naef started house –to- house promotion and have since April, last year, served 530 patients.

Mustapha’s  FastRx is meaningfully improving the lives of clients and he has been looking forward to extending it to other parts of the country in 2020.

The year, however, has come with its challenges, as the emergence of coronavirus ravages the world.

The team has to be innovative to serve the people.

App developer, Mustapha, says, the motivation is to help people grow healthy and stronger.

The team is looking forward to partnering with medical practitioners across Africa to impact lives.