On the 13th of June, a haulage truck driver was found dead in the 32-kilometre queue of trucks at the Busia border between Uganda and Kenya. This bottleneck in regional supply chain is caused by mandatory COVID-19 testing, whose results take 14-26 hours. Waiting for test results not only represents an increased risk in COVID-19 transmission to communities but also outbreak of water borne and food borne diseases. Critically, such delays in the supply of goods and medicines for land locked countries further threaten the health and wellbeing of these populations. To mitigate this problem, the Ministry of Health of Uganda proposes to test and allow drivers continue with journeys, however, this would require a quicker approach of tracing drivers who test positive, and profile their attributable transmission risk. To address this limitation, we propose to develop and test digital contact tracing technology tailored to the haulage industry. This approach provides a unique opportunity to harness the input of users, characteristics of the haulage sector, support of government, technology firms and academia to maximise uptake and utility of such tools in a developing country context. Critically the tool will be open source, which allows for simultaneous testing of its utility in other parts of the world. In Uganda, the technology will provide the Ministry of health information on location, an alert system for cases, at-risk drivers as well as expected volume of traffic at checkpoints. This strengthens public health responses to COVID-19 and improves regional flow of supply chain

The overarching objective is to develop a digital tracking tool that enhances the speed and_x000D_ effectiveness of public health contact tracing to reduce COVID-19 transmission and_x000D_ enables safe re-opening of economies. This will be done through the following specific_x000D_ objectives;_x000D_ a) Develop a mobile application for COVID-19 track and tracing tailored to the_x000D_ haulage sector_x000D_ b) Conduct stakeholder consultative meetings to inform the mobile application_x000D_ development- by; capturing user knowledge attitudes and practices associated to COVID19 and ii) bioethics of digital contact tracing technology_x000D_ c) Test the utility of mobile application among haulage truck drivers in Uganda_x000D_ d) Use the data generated from b & c to develop models that robustly map transmission risk, estimate the contribution of the haulage sector to the national disease_x000D_ epidemiology and most of all inform resource allocation_x000D_ e) Stakeholder dialogue on the study output, especially the impact of the technology_x000D_ on disease control and preparedness.