At the weekend, the Department of Health announced a WhatsApp chatbot to help South Africans find reliable, trustworthy information relating to COVID-19.

The COVID-19 Connect bot is easily accessible by adding 0600 123 456 as a contact to WhatsApp and initiating a conversation.

Today the creators of the bot, Praekelt.org, have said that more than 1.5 million South Africans are making use of COVID-19 Connect.

The chatbot is endorsed by both the Department of Health and the National Institute for Communicable Diseases.

“President Cyril Ramaphosa asked that we act together, act now and act decisively – the National Department of Health, the teams from WhatsApp and the World Health Organisation and our own teams at Praekelt.org and Turn.io have done exactly this over the last few days while developing COVID-19 Connect,” said Praekelt.org founder and Turn.io co-founder, Gustav Praekelt, in a press statement.

“I’d like to thank all of the individuals and organisations involved in getting the COVID-19 Connect service up and running so quickly,” Praekelt added.

The chatbot is built using Turn.io’s technology, allowing it to deliver automated responses to the most frequently asked questions surrounding COVID-19. Impressively, the bot was built in under a week.

Using Turn.io’s machine learning technology, COVID-19 Connect is able to managed conversations at scale. In our experience so far the bot has delivered responses quickly with little to no delay.

Praekelt.org adds that COVID-19 Connect also provides government real-time data insights which help effective decision making in this time.

For our readers who aren’t using COVID-19 Connect, we urge you to add 0600 123 456 to your contacts. Alternatively, you can visit the Department of Health’s dedicated website (sacoronavirus.co.za) for the latest figures and information.