The Honorary Consul of Liberia to Leipzig, Germany Michael Kölsch, has developed a smartphone application aimed at containing different epidemics.

The application which supports the fight against epidemic is currently going through a final Testing phase. It is expected to be available for download, this year, (2020). 

According to a Foreign Ministry release, the Ebolapp was developed in 2014 during the height of the Ebola Virus Disease by Mr. Michael Kölsch, together with programmers from a company called Leipzig-Based Publish-Air in collaboration with German medical professionals.

Disclosing the news at the end of a two-day retreat organized for Honorary Consuls by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Michael Kölsch said the thought came on a torn night when he was wondering how to stem the Ebola Virus Disease  in West Africa during the outbreak.

The Honorary Consul of the Republic of Liberia to the City of Leipzig in Germany narrated that the next morning he called a fellow campaigner and explained to him the working principle of a novel app that functions like a warning system.

Addressing a Press conference on Friday in the Conference Room on the 4^th floor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the inventor of the application, Mr. Michael Kölsch said the Ebolapp records the movement and profile of the user and measures via GPS and Bluetooth indicating how long and at which distance the users stay.

According to Mr. Kolsch, if two persons have the application on their phones and came in close contact, the programmed app informs the person that is not sick about an infected person closer to them.

He further disclosed that the application has been tested and tried successfully in Germany, adding that a two-week field trial was recently launched in Liberia, precisely at the John F. Kennedy Medical Center, with collected data from the trial being evaluated.

The Liberian Honorary Consul to Leipzig expressed hope that the GSM Companies operating in Liberia will see the need to preinstall “Ebolapp’ on the phones before they are sold on the market to bring relief to the masses.

The programming of the free and potentially life-saving "Ebolapp" was done by the Leipzig Company PublishAir in Berlin, Germany.

Also Speaking, the Ambassador of Germany to Liberia, Hubert J. Jager described the development of the application and trial in Liberia, as a great milestone for Liberia-Germany partnership and a true joint venture between the two governments.