Management of COVID-19 Pandemic Data in India: Challenges Faced and Lessons Learnt.

Jasmine Kaur,Jasleen Kaur,Harpreet Singh,Vinit Kumar,Ajay Singh Dhama

doi:10.3389/fdata.2021.790158

Jasmine Kaur, Jasleen Kaur + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fdata.2021.790158

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Journal: Frontiers in big data	Publication Date: Nov 30, 2021
Citations: 4	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Indian Council of Medical Research

Abstract

COVID-19 is an ongoing pandemic, which has already claimed millions of lives worldwide. In the absence of prior information on the pandemic, the governments can use generated testing data to drive policy decisions. Thus, a one-stop repository is essential to ensure sharing of clean, de-duplicated, and updated records to all the stakeholders. In India, the government initiated the testing through a network of VRDLs headed by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). Initially, the generated data were captured and shared in Excel sheets. As the number of cases increased, there was a need for a data management system to ensure reliable and up-to-date data to drive policy decisions. Thus, the data management team at ICMR initiated the development of a national COVID-19 testing data management tool that is currently maintaining all the data in a central hub. The first version of the tool was released in March 2020 and was subsequently modified with the changing testing guidelines and strategies. On completing one and a half years of managing the data and collecting approximately 550 million records, the team analyzed the challenges faced and the strategies used to ensure a seamless flow of data to the system and its real-time analysis. In this study, the entire duration of the pandemic has been divided into four different phases based on the resourcefulness of the country. Since the pandemic is currently ongoing, this study can be useful for countries in a different phase of pandemic facing similar challenges.

Highlights

The novel coronavirus disease COVID-19 is a global pandemic (Bedford et al, 2020)
The entire duration of the pandemic has been divided into four different phases based on the resourcefulness of the country
Data generated—Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) was constantly working towards augmenting the testing capacity, and by the end of March, approximately 150 labs were conducting 3–4,000 tests per day (ICMR,. 2021a) (ICMR,. 2021b)

Summary

Introduction

The novel coronavirus disease COVID-19 is a global pandemic (Bedford et al, 2020). Since its inception in China around December 2019, it rapidly spread to more than 200 nations in less than 5 months (WHO, 2021). The paper discusses testing guidelines and strategies, data generated, challenges faced, and their implemented solutions (details in Figure 1 and Figure 2). Data generated—ICMR was constantly working towards augmenting the testing capacity, and by the end of March, approximately 150 labs were conducting 3–4,000 tests per day With the increase in the number of laboratories and tests, managing Excel sheets became tedious and time-consuming.

Results

Conclusion