ESET Southern Africa Adopts LifeQ’s COVID-19 Early Warning and Disease Tracking Solution to Safeguard Employees
By
leveraging a critical early warning and disease tracking system for
COVID-19 in individuals via LifeQ’s wearable-based platform, businesses
can better predict outbreaks
and assist employees towards recovery.
September 2, 2020 –
CAPE TOWN – LifeQ,
the world-leading independent provider of wearable-
derived health
information, today announced that the South African operations of ESET, a premier, global cybersecurity
company, is the first customer for its COVID-19 early warning and disease tracking solution.
Unlike periodic testing, LifeQ's continuous
monitoring solution can provide an early warning of physiological
changes even before employees display symptoms.
After
extensive lockdowns worldwide in response to the sudden outbreak of
COVID-19, countries and businesses have to find new ways to deal with
the ongoing repercussions of
the pandemic as part of a much-needed drive to “get back to business”.
New
studies are released almost daily that outline the debilitating longer
term impact, even on younger people that have recovered, as well as the
lasting cardiovascular effects
and persistent symptoms after acute COVID-19. Furthermore, although a
first tier of vaccines is expected to be available towards the end of
2020, many questions remain about vaccine safety after fast-tracked
trials and globally significant portions of the
public have already indicated a reluctance towards early adoption of
vaccines. It is becoming clear that COVID-19 is to remain a challenging
factor for many years to come, and not just for the elderly or
vulnerable.
“Beyond
the longer term promise of vaccines, a growing range of measures are
being adopted to adjust to a new normal, including point of care
testing, temperature screening,
wearing of masks, social distancing, sterilisation of surfaces, PPE,
and symptom reporting,” says Laurie Olivier, CEO of LifeQ. “However,
while having some prevention benefits, none of these measures are as
adequate as an early warning system of infections
to prevent the spread among co-workers at offices, in manufacturing
plants and on construction sites.”
He
continues: “Businesses and manufacturing operations that cannot
function effectively on a remote basis have to go out of their way to
safeguard their employees. In the US,
class action lawsuits have already been launched against businesses,
requiring them to demonstrate that they have taken every possible means
of precaution. Some entities have been holding out in the hope that the
COVID-19 threat will disappear, or that a
super vaccine will become available to decisively terminate the
pandemic. Progressive organisations are coming to the conclusion that
the challenge will not evaporate overnight, and it is best to adopt new
technologies that could help deal with the anxieties
of employees who would like or may need to return to the office, but
are rightfully scared of being infected by their colleagues.”
LifeQ
is recognised by leading Global Fortune 100 companies as having the
widest and most accurate range of wearable-derived biometrics and health
information. Before the emergence
of COVID-19, acute disease onset detection was already firmly a part of
LifeQ’s development plans. The company offers a finely tuned
individualised anomaly detector that leverages a range of continuous
physiological streams to enable the early identification
of the onset of various acute diseases like COVID-19 and then further track disease progression to help triage for clinical intervention. As part of its tailored COVID-19 solution, LifeQ harnesses current
technology embedded in its health risk calculations used by
VeoSens, its life insurance focussed solution to determine the risk for individuals suffering complications as a result of COVID-19.
The
LifeQ solution serves as a screening tool that recommends to an
individual to take a COVID-19 test if no other explanation for anomalies
can be found. LifeQ first released
an early version of the product that is geared to help companies get
back to business, while continuing to broaden the scope and efficacy of
the offering with the inclusion of additional physiological streams
generated by a variety of LifeQ-enabled wearables.
A
range of wearable companies are involved in studies to validate the
application of their own products for pre-symptomatic screening. The
challenge wearable devices face is
the ability to comprehensively monitor the wide range of physiological
parameters needed, as it is abundantly clear that the impact of COVID-19
varies distinctly from human-to-human. “No single measure like
breathing rate or resting heart rate is sufficient
as an effective universal screening mechanism. Also, while having
suitable outputs for consumer use, we are not aware of non-LifeQ enabled
wearables with the accuracy and range of biometrics required to
minimise false positives and negatives in order to be
an effective early warning system for COVID-19,” shares Franco du
Preez, PhD, LifeQ’s Chief Scientist.
“We
owe it to our employees and our country to implement solutions towards
getting back to business while safeguarding our employees. ESET Southern
Africa proudly leads the
way in South Africa by adopting a world class solution by LifeQ. This
also shows the great potential of our country as an innovation hub with
the Stellenbosch-based complement of LifeQ playing a crucial role in
getting this solution prepared for the global
market,” concludes Carey van Vlaanderen, CEO of ESET Southern Africa.
For more information, go to
https://www.lifeq.com.
About LifeQ
LifeQ
is the leading independent provider of biometrics and health
information derived from wearable devices, used in world-leading health
management solutions. LifeQ’s information
and solutions are already used by Fortune 500 customers and partners in
a range of wearable devices, consumer-facing health and wellness
platforms, and health-risk tracking applications for the global
insurance and corporate wellness industries. With offices
in South Africa, the USA and Netherlands, LifeQ is ideally placed to
deliver solutions globally, leveraging the convergence of new
technologies and consumer and business demand for new approaches to
health management.
About ESET Southern Africa
ESET began life as a pioneer of antivirus protection,
creating award-winning threat detection software. Now, ESET's goal is to
make sure that everybody can enjoy the breath-taking opportunities that
technology offers. Today, ESET security solutions allow businesses
and consumers in more than 200 countries and territories to make
the most of the digital world. Working with ethical and passionate
people, ESET is building a safer technology environment for everyone to
enjoy. This is being done through education and business’s
commitment to research and development. ESET believes in technology –
and want to make sure that everyone can enjoy it in safety.
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