Goa's Health Ministry Launches WhatsApp Chatbot To Battle COVID-19

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and waves of related misinformation, Goa’s Health Ministry already rolled out a chatbot named “Cobot-19” to eliminate miscommunication after the local Health Minister Vishwajit Rane faced a disease-related hoax.

According to the Health Ministry of Goa, the chatbot service will get its own way into the WhatsApp platform. This idea came after the Singaporean government launched a similar technology in charge of establishing a unified point of communication to address misinformation when the COVID-19 scare surges. As such, Cobot-19 houses a variety of aspects to become a one-stop place of information for all citizens across the country.

Talking about the project, Vishwajit Rane claimed that Goa has been the first state that takes up such an initiative at a large scale while aiming to ward off the confusion caused by unreliable rumors as well as advisories from undetected sources on the Internet.

People will be able to spot whether or not the news they’ve received is true, stemming the flow of doubts about unofficial information around the epidemic.

The Health Minister actually fell prey to a prank after a person who mimicked a representative from a medical lab said one patient had tested positive for COVID-19 in Goa.

People have to save the number (+91 7948058218) in their contacts to have it installed on WhatsApp. Once done, the chatbot will send a welcome message before asking them to set up their own preferences, including language options and more.

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