COVID-19 ANDROID-BASED TEXT-TO-SPEECH APPLICATION: AN INCLUSION OF PEOPLE LIVING WITH READING AND SIGHTING DISABILITIES

Abstract

Research has shown that Coronaviruses (CoV) are a dangerous virus species that are capable of causing Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV). The most recent is Coronavirus Infectious Disease (COVID-19) that was first found in Wuhan, in the people's Democratic Republic of China as another new form of pneumonia disease. Since its discovery in late 2019, the number of people infected by this virus, and the number of deaths is on the increase daily going by the reports of the World Health Organization (WHO). For now, there is no substantial solution to the pandemic, however, an important task that is done was creating aggressive awareness among the people to educate them on the symptoms, threat, and prevention of the disease as this would contribute a lot in controlling the spread of the pandemic. Most awareness strategies adopted so far include campaigns, flyers, jingles, advert, messages, etc. These strategies are however challenging to the populace with reading and sighting disabilities. Given the aforementioned, Android-Based Text-to-Speech Enabled Public Awareness Application of COVID-19 using Agile Methodology for Mobile Application Development and Android Studio Version 3.4 was developed to provide public awareness information on the danger, safety, and preventive measures against contact and spread of coronavirus pandemic by translating written messages to audio messages. The developed Application has succeeded in achieving the cardinal objective of the research by providing efficient and effective COVID-19 awareness information to people living with both English reading and sighting disabilities and is, therefore, recommended for use to the general public. It is recommended as further research to translate text to other local indigenous languages.