Covid records lost after cyber attack
Accurate vaccination and recovery files are hit
COVID patient records have been lost after the Russian cyber attack on the HSE, the Irish
Mirror can reveal.
Health chiefs are scrambling to put in place back-up plans to help people prove they have recovered from Covid so they can get Digital Covid certs and vaccine passes.
The HSE confirmed the tool it used to monitor people recovered from Covid, the CIDR (Computerised Infectious Disease Reporting) system, fell victim to the ransomware attack.
Bosses have been using the tracker app and a back-up Healthlink messaging service to try and track recoveries while waiting to get the CIDR back online.
It means Government plans to enable reopening indoor hospitality this month have been dealt another blow after the HSE confirmed a key system is still offline.
Sinn Fein’s health spokesman David Cullinane said the latest development adds to the “utter confusion” surrounding the proof of recovery system.
He added: “The last week has seen utter confusion, with ministers saying one thing about
GPS issuing recovery certs, then the GPS saying it was the first they’d heard of it, and now this, this makes it even more unclear where we are.” Ministers are drawing up plans to let all vaccinated and recovered people back in pubs and restaurants from July 26.
The database containing everybody who received a vaccine was isolated and kept safe from the Russian hackers, but another crucial system that recorded Covid recoveries
was hit. A HSE spokesman said: “The reported epidemiology of Covid-19 is normally based on the notifications to the CIDR system.
“The cyber-attack has prevented the routine notification of cases.
“As an interim measure, provisional epidemiological reports are prepared based on the information captured by the HSE Covid Care Tracker.
“As soon as all Covid-19 surveillance systems are restored, surveillance staff in laboratories, the Departments of Public Health and HPSC will work to retrospectively collate and validate cases diagnosed and/or notified during this period and progress the integration of verified vaccination data with CIDR.
“The Healthlink messaging service, which provides Covid Results from the NVRL (National Virus Reference Lab) to GPS, was restored on June 3 within 2.5 weeks of the Cyber attack.
“People who use walk-in test centres and online booking do not receive their results from the GP.”