Exploring the scope and utility of digital proximity tracing in the effective containment of COVID-19 infection: A narrative review

The ongoing coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic can be acknowledged as one of the most significant public health emergencies the world has encountered in the last few decades. The purpose of the current review is to understand the significance of contact tracing and explore the pros and cons of digital contact tracing in ensuring better containment of the COVID-19 outbreaks. A widespread search of published articles pertaining to the topic was done in the PubMed search engine and a total of 46 articles matching the objectives of the present review were identified. However, four articles were discarded because of the non-availability of the free full text, and thus 42 research papers were finally included. Digital contact tracing bridges the gap wherein we aim to expedite the process of contact tracing to identify the potential contacts of the confirmed cases. These applications are designed in such a way that they send a notification on the smartphone of a person, once the user is exposed to one or more confirmed cases of COVID-19. To conclude, in the battle against the COVID-19 infection, the international welfare agencies and national policy makers have been looking forward to the employment of digital technologies to support the ongoing public health measures for contact tracing. The approach of digital contact/proximity tracing should be considered as a supplement to conventional manual tracing. The need of the hour is to take specific measures to improve the inherent design of these apps, their implementation and demonstration of their effectiveness, which in turn will play a part in enhancing their acceptance and usability among the general population.