With widespread concern and panic related to the Coronavirus pandemic, a recent initiative sees the popular and widely used WhatsApp teaming up with WHO to create a Health Alert which will provide genuine and up to date information on coronavirus.
The deadly virus is fast infecting people globally and raising the number of those infected at a frightening pace. At such a time technology comes to the rescue of providing accurate and instant information.
Reliable information on the Coronavirus will be available to all the users of this service 24×7. The salient features included as part of the information will be information on the symptoms of this disease and the precautions to be taken. The users will also have access to the latest worldwide statistics related to the spread of this disease.
The set up this alert the user will have to save +41 79 893 1892 as a number in their contacts. After the number is saved, it will appear automatically on WhatsApp. The user has to then open the chat and send a simple message which says ‘Hi’ to the same number. The WHO Health Alert service will then send a series of prompts as a response to that message. Latest updates will then appear regularly on the chat.
While commenting on the launch of this new service Mark Zuckerberg said this would be a very handy tool to exchange tips on care and prevention related to the Coronavirus and it could easily be shared with friends and family. This would help in curbing all the misinformation being spread about the virus and the disease.
Earlier, a coronavirus information hub had been introduced on WhatsApp and this new service would be completely different. The hub that was launched earlier provides information via a webpage.
Currently, the new WHO Health Alert service is in English but plans are in the offing to support other languages which include Chinese, French, Spanish, Russian and Arabic.
