The Ministry of Public Health of Uruguay, updated its chatbot to provide more personalized attention to suspected cases of COVID-19. The bot also provides general information about the disease and recommendations.
In the last week of 2020, the Ministry of Public Health of Uruguay (MSP), updated the chatbot that had been used since March to provide automated responses to the population that was looking for information on COVID-19.
The technology used for the development of the chatbot was donated to the Uruguayan government by the technology company IBM. Watson is IBM's Artificial Intelligence-based system for the creation of the chatbot with the ability to answer questions in natural language. This company, in conjunction with the Agency of Electronic Government and Information Society (Agesic), developed the Uruguayan government's chatbot in response to the COVID-19.
There are three ways to access this digital tool, through the MSP's website, or by phone at 098 999 999, via WhatsApp message or through Facebook Messenger. Before the update, the bot could only answer four questions by typing in numbers 1 to 4: (1) General Information, (2) questions about travelers from abroad, (3) questions about people who had direct contact with a confirmed case of coronavirus, and (4) the last question about users who presented symptoms.
The update attempts to make conversations with the user more natural, including a greeting, and longer conversations, containing more information. In addition to no longer just responding to options based on numbers 1-4, the bot has a list of 160 topics, according to Sebastian Vergara, IBM's chief technology officer in Uruguay and Paraguay. "We have a list of 160 more topics, that somehow we have the possibility to give an answer. We created them by browsing different government sites, press and TV interviews. This is ready to respond. We are missing the official validation".
It is currently able to answer more than 16 questions, in addition to the initial 4, these are the remaining ones:
5.- How is it transmitted?
6.- Information about vaccination and vaccines
7.- How is it treated?
8.- Information about COVID-19 and surfaces
9.- Symptoms
10.- Advice
11.- Protective measures
12.- Preventive measures
13.- Symptoms after traveling
14.- Obtain information on updated data in Uruguay
15.- Download the Coronavirus UY app
16.- Closing or farewell
Vergara explained that as people use this tool the bot will learn and be able to provide more detailed information in their answers. In addition, he emphasized that the tool was a donation to the Uruguayan State and its maintenance is free. Another important aspect of the chatbot is that it does not request or store personal information from users who interact.
