Chapter one introduction

1.1 Background information

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is defined as illness caused by a novel coronavirus called
severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2; formerly called 2019-nCoV),
which was first identified amid an outbreak of respiratory illness cases in Wuhan City, Hubei
Province, China. It was initially reported to the WHO on December 31, 2019. On January 30,
2020, the WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global health emergency. On March 11,
2020, the WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, its first such designation since declaring
H1N1 influenza a pandemic in 2009.   
Illness caused by SARS-CoV-2 was termed COVID-19 by the WHO, the acronym derived from
"coronavirus disease 2019. " The name was chosen to avoid stigmatizing the virus's origins in
terms of populations, geography, or animal associations

1.1.1 Symptoms

The following symptoms may indicate COVID-19 

 Fever or chills
 Cough
 Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
 Fatigue
 Muscle or body aches
 Headache
 New loss of taste or smell
 Sore throat
 Congestion or runny nose
 Nausea or vomiting
 Diarrhea

1.1.2 Control the spread of COVID-19

To control the spread of COVID-19, interventions need to break the chains of human-to-human
transmission, ensuring that the number of new cases generated by each confirmed case is
maintained. As part of a comprehensive strategy, case identification, isolation, testing and care,
and contact tracing and quarantine, are critical activities to reduce transmission and control
the epidemic.
1.1.3 What is contact tracing?

Contact tracing is the process of identifying, assessing, and managing people who have been
exposed to someone who has been infected with the COVID-19 virus. Contact tracing and
quarantine of contacts identified through contact tracing interrupt transmission between people
and are essential public health tools for controlling the virus. Contact tracing can also help
people who are at a higher risk of developing severe disease know earlier that they have been
exposed so that they can get medical care quicker if they go on to develop symptoms.

Contact tracing is an essential public health tool for controlling infectious disease outbreaks,
such as those caused by the COVID-19 virus. Contact tracing can break the chains of
transmission through the rapid identification, isolation and clinical care of cases, and providing
supported quarantine of      contacts, meaning that virus transmission can be stopped. 

Contact tracing helps protect you, your family, and your community by:

 Helping people diagnosed with COVID-19 get referrals for services and resources they
may need to safely isolate.
 Notifying people who have come into close contact with someone diagnosed with
COVID-19 about their exposure.
 Helping people who were exposed to COVID-19 know what steps to take, depending on
their vaccination status. Follow-up may include testing and quarantine for unvaccinated
or not fully vaccinated people, and testing and wearing a mask for fully vaccinated.

Chain of events for tracing, monitoring and caring for contacts of probable and confirmed
COVID-19
Steps for contact tracing

1. Identifying contacts

A contact is a person who has had any one of the following exposures to a probable or confirmed
case:

1. face-to-face contact with a probable or confirmed case within 1 meter and for at least 15
minutes;

2. direct physical contact with a probable or confirmed case;

3. direct care for a patient with probable or confirmed COVID-19 disease without the use of
recommended PPE; or

4. other situations as indicated by local risk assessments.

 2. Prioritizing contacts for follow-up

In scenarios where it may not be feasible to identify, monitor and quarantine all contacts,
prioritization for follow-up should be given to:

1) contacts at a higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection based on their degree of exposure,

with the goal of breaking chains of transmission; and

2) contacts at a higher risk of developing severe COVID-19 disease, to ensure early referral
to healthcare. In general, proximity, duration and location of exposure determine the risk of
transmission, although all contacts who meet the definitions above are at risk of infection.

3. Informing contacts

Each individual verified as a contact should be provided with information in the appropriate
language on the following: •

The process and rationale for contact tracing, and information on quarantine. The process and
how to ensure proper conditions for quarantine are detailed in further guidance on quarantine. •
What symptoms to look out for during the monitoring period. These include fever, cough,
general weakness/fatigue, headache, myalgia, sore throat, loss of smell or taste, coryza, dyspnea,
anorexia/nausea/vomiting, diarrhea and altered mental status.

• What people should do if they become unwell. This includes whom to inform, including
their own contacts; what referral mechanisms are in place for testing and treatment; and what to
expect in terms of isolation and treatment if they are diagnosed with COVID-19. Advice on
isolation and home care for COVID-19 patients can be found here. • Data protection, including
how their personal information will be used, processed and stored. • Any other specific query or
concern raised by the contact.

4. Managing and monitoring contacts

. Quarantine
. Supporting individuals in quarantine
. Monitoring of contacts in quarantine

1.2 Problem Statement

The ministry of health in conjunction with the national government are finding it hard to combat
the spread of COVID 19.

Various people are interacting freely within the country and not following the rules and
regulations of the ministry of health. This increases the chances of the spread of COVID 19
disease. To curb the spread of the virus, various measures are to be put in place that includes:
Rapid identification, isolation and clinical care of cases, quarantine vaccination among others.
Most of these measures are not effective when the patients are not available. Example, isolation.
The patients are to be identified first before they are isolated and held up in safe places where
they can’t interact with the healthy once.

This system; the covid 19 contact tracing system allows the contacts to be identified easily by the
management and proper measures taken to control the spread of the disease.

1.3 Research Objectives

The main purpose of this study was to develop a web-based system for COVID 19 contact
tracing.
The specific objectives of this study include:
i. To investigate the factors relating to COVID-19 contact tracing.
ii. To review related architecture, models, technologies, and challenges of existing COVID
19 contact tracing approaches.
iii. To develop, design and test a web-based system for COVID-19 contact tracing.

1.4 Research Questions

i. What are the factors relating to COVID19 contact tracing?

ii. What are the existing architecture, models, technologies and challenges of existing COVID-19
contact tracing approaches?

iii. How can a web -based system for COVID 19 contact tracing and screening be designed,
developed and tested?

iv. Can the developed system assist in COVID-19 contact tracing?

1.5 FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS

USERS
i. Provide Registration for new users.
ii. Provide login and logout mechanism for authorized users.
iii. Allow users to change their passwords and editing their accounts.
iv. Allow users to download a tracking card.
v. Allow users to verify their cards QR code when getting to any
establishment.
vi. Allow users to check their tracks of various places they visited.
Receive messages
 ADMINISTRTORS
i. Provide login and logout mechanism for authorized users.
ii. Allow administrators to add establishments.
iii. Allow administrators to add cities
iv. Allow administrators to add sub_counties
v. Allow administrators to add counties
vi. Allow administrators to view tracks of the people
vii. Allow administrators to send messages to people.

ESTABLISHMENTS

i. Provide login and logout mechanism for authorized establishments.

ii. Allow establishments administrators to login and allow people to
scan their cards.
iii. Allow establishments administrators to edit their company details
iv. Allow establishments administrators to get cards of their users
v. Allow establishments administrators to view logs
vi. Allow establishments administrators to view tracks of the people
vii. Allow establishments administrators to send messages to people.

1.6 . SURVEY OF TECHNOLOGY

In any application for contact tracing, there is a scope for a large number of platforms, languages
and frameworks to choose from. Before selecting from this large array of technologies, the
following aspects, which are characteristic to windows-based application like this one, have been
kept in mind:

 Data validation
 Performance
 Reliability
 Scalability
  Security
 Portability
 Performance
 Time constraint
 Cost constraint

The various technologies available for consideration are as follows:

Operating System: Windows 7 and above

Client Side Scripting:

 HTML
 CSS
 JavaScript

Server Side Scripting: PHP

Database Tool: My SQL

Testing Server: Apache
Other Software Used:
 Smartdraw
 StarUML
 EdrawMax

HTML

HTML or Hypertext Markup Language is the standard markup language used to create web
pages.

HTML is written in the form of HTML elements consisting of tags enclosed in angle brackets
(like <html>). HTML tags most commonly come in pairs like <h1> and </h1>, although some
tags represent empty elements and so are unpaired, for example <img>. The first tag in a pair is
the start tag, and the second tag is the end tag (they are also called opening tags and closing
tags).

The purpose of a web browser is to read HTML documents and compose them into visible or
audible web pages. The browser does not display the HTML tags, but uses the tags to interpret
the content of the page. HTML describes the structure of a website semantically along with cues
for presentation, making it a markup language rather than a programming language.

HTML elements form the building blocks of all websites. HTML allows images and objects to
be embedded and can be used to create interactive forms. It provides a means to create structured
documents by denoting structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists, links,
quotes and other items. It can embed scripts written in languages such as JavaScript which affect
the behavior of HTML web pages.

CSS

CSS was first developed in 1997, as a way for Web developers to define the look and feel of
their Web pages. It was intended to allow developers to separate content from design so that
HTML could perform more of the function that it was originally based on the markup of content,
without worry about the design and layout.

CSS didn't gain in popularity until around 2000, when Web browsers began using more than the
basic font and color aspects of CSS.
Web Designers that don't use CSS for their design and development of Web sites are rapidly
becoming a thing of the past. And it is arguably as important to understand CSS as it is to know
HTML - and some would say it was more important to know CSS.

Style sheet refers to the document itself. Style sheets have been used for document design for
years. They are the technical specifications for a layout, whether print or online. Print designers
use style sheets to insure that their designs are printed exactly to specifications. A style sheet for
a Web page serves the same purpose, but with the added functionality of also telling the viewing
engine (the Web browser) how to render the document being viewed.

PHP:

PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source
general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be
embedded into HTML.

Instead of lots of commands to output HTML (as seen in C or Perl), PHP pages contain HTML
with embedded code that does "something" (in this case, output "Hi, I'm a PHP script!"). The
PHP code is enclosed in special start and end processing instructions <?php and ?> that allow
you to jump into and out of "PHP mode."

What distinguishes PHP from something like client-side JavaScript is that the code is executed
on the server, generating HTML which is then sent to the client. The client would receive the
results of running that script, but would not know what the underlying code was. You can even
configure your web server to process all your HTML files with PHP, and then there's really no
way that users can tell what you have up your sleeve.

The best things in using PHP are that it is extremely simple for a newcomer, but offers many
advanced features for a professional programmer. Don't be afraid reading the long list of PHP's
features. You can jump in, in a short time, and start writing simple scripts in a few hours.

MYSQL:
MySQL, the most popular Open Source SQL database management system, is developed,
distributed, and supported by Oracle Corporation.

The MySQL Web site (http://www.mysql.com/) provides the latest information about MySQL
software.

 MySQL is a database management system.

A database is a structured collection of data. It may be anything from a simple shopping

list to a picture gallery or the vast amounts of information in a corporate network. To add,
access, and process data stored in a computer database, you need a database management
system such as MySQL Server. Since computers are very good at handling large amounts
of data, database management systems play a central role in computing, as standalone
utilities, or as parts of other applications.

 MySQL databases are relational.

A relational database stores data in separate tables rather than putting all the data in one
big storeroom. The database structures are organized into physical files optimized for
speed. The logical model, with objects such as databases, tables, views, rows, and
columns, offers a flexible programming environment. You set up rules governing the
relationships between different data fields, such as one-to-one, one-to-many, unique,
required or optional, and “pointers” between different tables. The database enforces these
rules, so that with a well-designed database, your application never sees inconsistent,
duplicate, orphan, out-of-date, or missing data.

The SQL part of “MySQL” stands for “Structured Query Language”. SQL is the most
common standardized language used to access databases. Depending on your
programming environment, you might enter SQL directly (for example, to generate
reports), embed SQL statements into code written in another language, or use a language-
specific API that hides the SQL syntax.
 SQL is defined by the ANSI/ISO SQL Standard. The SQL standard has been evolving
since 1986 and several versions exist. In this manual, “SQL-92” refers to the standard
released in 1992, “SQL:1999” refers to the standard released in 1999, and “SQL:2003”
refers to the current version of the standard. We use the phrase “the SQL standard” to
mean the current version of the SQL Standard at any time.

 MySQL software is Open Source.

Open Source means that it is possible for anyone to use and modify the software.
Anybody can download the MySQL software from the Internet and use it without paying
anything. If you wish, you may study the source code and change it to suit your needs.
The MySQL software uses the GPL (GNU General Public License),
http://www.fsf.org/licenses/, to define what you may and may not do with the software in
different situations. If you feel uncomfortable with the GPL or need to embed MySQL
code into a commercial application, you can buy a commercially licensed version from
us. See the MySQL Licensing Overview for more information
(http://www.mysql.com/company/legal/licensing/).

Non Functional Requirements:

Following Non-functional:

 Secure access of confidential data (customer’s details).

 24 X 7 availability.
 Better component design to get better performance at peak time.

Flexible service based architecture will be highly desirable for future extension Nonfunctional
requirements define system properties and constraints It arise through user needs, because of
budget constraints or organizational policies, or due to the external factors such as safety
regulations, privacy registration and so on.

Various other Non-functional requirements are:

1. Security
2. Reliability
3. Maintainability
4. Portability
5. Extensibility
6. Reusability
7. Application Affinity/Compatibility
8. Resource Utilization

External Interface Requirements:

User Interface:
User of the system will be provided with the Graphical user interface, there is no command line
interface for any functions of the product.
Hardware Interface:
Hardware requirements for running this project are as follows:
Processor: - Pentium I or above.
RAM: - 128 MB or above.
HD: - 20 GB or above.

Software Interface:-
Software required to make working of product is: -
Front end- HTML/PHP
Back end- My SQL