In a welcome step, the World Health Organisation launched a messaging service with WhatsApp and Facebook on 20 March, with the objective of keeping people safe from the novel coronavirus and the COVID-19 disease it causes.
This service can potentially reach over 2 billion people and establishes a direct delivery of information from the WHO to the public.
Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted, “I am proud to announce that today we launched a new Health Alert messaging service via WhatsApp. This service will provide the latest news and information on COVID-19, including details on symptoms and how to protect yourself.”
How Do I Subscribe?
The service can be subscribed by clicking here.
- This will open a conversation on WhatsApp.
- Users can simply type “hi” to activate the conversation.
- A menu of options that can help answer their questions about COVID-19 will appear.
- The service will also provide the latest situation reports and numbers in real-time.
With rampant misinformation on the COVID-19 situation floating around, such measures are the need of the hour.
(Subscribe to FIT on Telegram)