By A Staff Reporter

Kathmandu, Apr. 7: Ministry of Home Affairs Monday formally launched an official site to deliver and disseminate actual information and data related to COVID-19 and its impact across the country.
“Now, every citizen and needy people can rely on government’s official application before believing in disparate information that comes from the social media regarding the virus,” Chief Executive Officer of National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) Anil Pokharel of the Ministry said.
The Ministry has named this site ‘COVID-19 Integrated Information and Quarantine Monitoring System,’ Pokharel said.
Minister for Home Affairs Ram Bahadur Thapa Badal inaugurated the site and application amidst a function held at the Ministry this afternoon.
The portal has come into operation from Monday, he said.
The site can be opened by browsing https://covid19.ndrrma.gov.np/ to get authentic information regarding the virus. According to the statistics of the site, as of Monday, 1,166 people are currently in quarantines and 131 in isolation wards across the country.
Speaking at the function, Minister Thapa said that the site would be effective in disseminating factual information and Nepal’s official data to the international community.
According to CEO Pokharel, there are National Emergency Operation Centres (NEOC) in 75 districts out of 77, and the officials can directly upload information to the site from their respective districts by means of separate login and user names.
The site would be fruitful in analysing the situation of the virus of every State, district and ward level of the local government after they uploaded their information to the site, Pokharel said.
Meanwhile, the Ministry also developed a separate application called Cobuddy to track every record of those kept in the isolation wards and those quarantined in the country.
Not every person and institution can operate this application as it requires special code to handle this, said Pokharel. The application will come into use for the quarantined people and those in isolation wards as their records will be kept in the application so that they can be traced from any place and location along with their movement, he said.
This application will first come into operation from Monday in Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, Balgung, Kanchanpur and Kailali districts. This application will first scan the face of the quarantined and isolated people, according to Pokharel.
This system will help to trace and arrest both if anyone escaped from the quarantine centre, he said.