Cochrane corner: digital contact tracing technologies in epidemics

Contact tracing is a public health measure implemented to control the spread and break the chains of transmission of an infectious disease. It is done by identifying, assessing, and managing people who have been exposed to an infectious disease to prevent onward transmission. We summarize findings from a rapid Cochrane review that included cohort and modelling studies to assess the benefits and harms of digital solutions for identifying contacts of confirmed positive cases of an infectious disease. The review included 12 studies, which assessed digital contact tracing for the following infectious diseases: Ebola, tuberculosis, pertussis and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This review revealed low-certainty evidence of a decrease in secondary cases of the targeted infectious disease, if digital contact tracing was used. However, it is uncertain from the currently available evidence whether digital contact tracing would produce more reliable counts of contacts and reduce the time taken to complete contact tracing. Therefore, implementation of digital contact tracing in the context of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in African countries should be accompanied by a robust monitoring and evaluation framework. There should be an evaluation and documentation of the benefits, cost-effectiveness, acceptability, feasibility, equity impacts, and unintended consequences of the intervention.