Mor Chana tracing app halted

The Ministry of Public Health yesterday announced that the Mor Chana Covid-19 case tracing app is no longer functioning as it is no longer necessary.

The ministry said the Mor Chana app was shut down yesterday as the Covid-19 situation has eased.

The app was created to record people's locations and inform them when clusters occur nearby plus other features related to Covid-prevention measures.

The app indicated the level of an outbreak in an area and gave real-time updates when cases were detected.

The Mor Chana app also allowed users to record their trips, assess any risks and enable medical officers to analyse patients' conditions.

Users were notified if they were near infection cases which were designated into four groups.

The groups were: a very-low-risk group who were close to non-symptomatic people, a low-risk group around people with cold-like symptoms, a moderate-risk group who were near recent returnees from overseas and a high-risk group who were near people with symptoms who have just returned from abroad.

The app also helped medical officers to judge levels of risk and what they needed to do to protect themselves. It also assisted with the planning of treatment for emergency cases.

The app has also kept people up to date with new cases and current situations while business operators could have used the app to assess infection risks among workers.

The app was developed by Code for Public developers while the Thai Chana app was developed by the government. Thai Chana app recorded people's travels and allowed the Disease Control Department to access the records of those in quarantine.

Mor Chana is also a different application from Mor Prom, which is an application that records the vaccination history of each individual, tracks any side effects from vaccines, and provides statistics on the national vaccination campaign.