World Health Organisation (WHO) has in partnership with WhatsApp and Facebook launched a dedicated messaging service to keep the global community up to speed with trusted sources of information on coronavirus.
The service unveiled yesterday is planned to be accessible in key global and widely used languages – English, French, Spanish and Arabic.
The WHO will rely on official information provided by governments to reach two (2) billion people enabling WHO to get information directly into the hands of the people that need it.
“This messaging service will provide the latest news and information on coronavirus including details on symptoms and how people can protect themselves and others,” WHO partly said in a statement on March 27, 2020.
“It also provides the latest situation reports and numbers in real time to help government decision-makers protect the health of their populations,” the statement added.
The service can be accessed through this link (http://bit.ly/who-covid19-whatsapp) that opens a conversation on WhatsApp.
Users can simply type “hi” “hola”, “salut” or “مرحبا” to activate the conversation, prompting a menu of options that can help answer their questions about COVID-19.
The WHO Health Alert was developed in collaboration with Praekelt.Org, using Turn (www.Turn.io) machine learning technology.
The WHO initiative also follows a digital Coronavirus Prevention and Treatment Handbook launched by Jack Ma and Alibaba Foundation, this week.
The handbook shares first hand key lessons and experience of Chinese medics at the First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine (FAHZU), who were at the frontline of COVID-19 treatment in China and crucial to slowing its spread.
The handbook is now available in seven languages: Chinese, English, French, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Turkish, with more languages coming soon.
The handbook is part of the Global MediXchange for Combating COVID-19 (GMCC) (Covid-19.AlibabaCloud.com) program, which was jointly established by the Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation.
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It is designed for medical experts around the world to communicate seamlessly with each other to share their invaluable experience of fighting coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and to ask and answer each other’s questions. To date, most applications have come in thus far from medical institutions in the U.S, Turkey, the U.K., Pakistan, Spain, and Germany.
“Knowledge is power! We launched an online platform for doctors and nurses around the world to exchange ideas, lessons and know-how to fight the virus. We welcome all hospitals to join Chinese hospitals on this open platform Covid-19.AlibabaCloud.com. One world, one fight!”, Jack Ma wrote in a tweet on Wednesday.
