CASTRIES, St Lucia (CMC) — As Caribbean countries roll out COVID-19 vaccination programmes, a St Lucian technology company has announced the production of a software solution that will enable early identification of anyone willing to be vaccinated.

Digitised Solutions Limited said on Thursday that the software, I-Vax, is a progressive web application developed to effectively implement and monitor the immunisation programmes.

The developers say I-Vax is extremely user-friendly and will provide quick registration by requiring an individual to input their date of birth and a valid national ID number.

“This information will then be validated against national databases to prevent invalid registration. I-Vax will then allow registrants to schedule a vaccination appointment based on available time slots configured for the vaccination site and, when applicable, I-Vax will even conveniently send early reminders for follow-up vaccination,” the company said in a statement.

Digitised Solutions added that working closely with local clinicians, I-Vax will provide a console for medical professionals to record and access information collected during triage, post-vaccination observations and self-reporting of suspected cases of adverse and side-effects by those vaccinated.

Information collected will then be used to provide real-time dashboard statistics such as the percentage of a population that has been vaccinated fully and partially, by city, town, village and nationally, likewise for the number of nationals awaiting vaccination.

Additional features of I-Vax include: schedule management based on available clinicians at a given site; contact-less appointment processing using QR-Code; offline registration to facilitate vaccine registration outreach programmes undertaken by healthcare workers; digital vaccine certificate as per WHO recommendation; digital vaccine verification using highly secure standard data protection protocols and terms of use; and in-built chat for direct access to health professionals associated with the vaccination programme.

According to Digitised Solutions Limited, I-Vax provides the most efficient means to collect vaccination data for analysis and reporting.

“The I-Vax helps enforce restrictions to reduce the spread of COVID-19 due to the ease at which vaccinated persons could be identified either for the purpose of national COVID-19 policies or future international obligations which will require vaccination before travel.

“Although I-Vax could be an integral part of the government's short- to long-term strategy that guarantees effective use of limited state resources, a high-quality communications plan is key to its success. As such, we have developed an I-Vax communications strategy that ensures a high measure of public outreach and consistent messaging on the importance of registering for the vaccine,” it said.

I-Vax is estimated to take six weeks for a phased rollout.