{"id":24301,"date":"2020-04-04T12:51:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-04T12:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricajournal.com\/?p=24301"},"modified":"2020-04-05T12:53:43","modified_gmt":"2020-04-05T12:53:43","slug":"south-african-created-mobile-alert-puts-covid-info-into-hands-of-millions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricajournal.com\/south-african-created-mobile-alert-puts-covid-info-into-hands-of-millions\/","title":{"rendered":"South African-Created Mobile Alert Puts COVID Info Into Hands of Millions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>WASHINGTON &#8211; A\nWhatsApp bot developed by a South African organization is helping millions of\npeople around the world get the latest information about the coronavirus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the time the virus\nbroke out, Praekelt.org had already created digital tools to help people in the\ndeveloping world improve their health and well-being. One of their most\nsuccessful was called MomConnect, a mobile phone service giving expectant\nmothers vital information about pregnancy milestones and linking them to\nservices<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gustav\nPraekelt, the founder of Praekelt.org, saw a similar need for information\nrelating to coronavirus. The South African government had set up hotlines, but\nthey were unable to handle the massive volume of calls and misinformation was\nspreading quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe\nwere worried that our users wouldn&#8217;t have access to a trusted source of\ninformation,\u201d Praekelt told VOA. \u201cSo people hear rumors and they hear stories,\nand people get panicky and worried about what they should do, to keep\nthemselves healthy, especially as all the lockdowns started happening.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Praekelt\ncreated COVID-19 Health Alert, offering a WhatsApp-based helpline, realtime\ndata and automated responses to common questions in numerous languages. Within\nthe first 10 days, the bot had 3.5 million users and Praekelt partnered with\nthe World Health Organization to create a similar bot to reach a global\naudience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One\nof the primary goals is to counter false information about the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;re\nnow launching in many, many, many languages, and on that bot, you can find out\ninformation but we also publish falsehoods and myths. Because sometimes what\nhappens is you need to actively counteract the falsehoods,\u201d Praekelt said. \u201cYou\ncan&#8217;t just provide the positive information, you also have to say, \u201cThere is\ninformation out there that is incorrect.&nbsp;And they are always incorrect on\nhow to deal with this pandemic. And we are actively working towards countering\nthose falsehoods.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>WhatsApp,\nwhich is owned by Facebook, is extremely popular in the developing world, where\nit has largely replaced Facebook and even email as the primary form of digital\ncommunication and networking. It has more than 2 billion users worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>WhatsApp\nleaders say they want it to play a positive role on the African continent and\nbeyond as a source for reliable information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/media.voltron.voanews.com\/Drupal\/01live-166\/styles\/sourced\/s3\/2020-04\/Nmachi%20Jidenma.jpeg?itok=uaUJHmJs\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe think the most\nimportant step WhatsApp can take during this crisis is to help connect people\ndirectly with public health officials providing crucial updates about\ncoronavirus,\u201d said Nmachi Jidenma, a member of the WhatsApp Partnerships and\nBusiness Development team&nbsp;in an email to VOA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jidenma said the\ncompany moved quickly to make WHO Health Alert go live in as many countries as\npossible, including India, Singapore, Israel, Indonesia, South Africa, Nigeria,\nArgentina, Brazil and the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe have worked with\nthe World Health Organization to set up WHO Health Alert and are partnering\nwith national health ministries around the world,\u201d Jidenma wrote. &nbsp;\u201cEach\nof these health alert lines provides education on myths and rumors circulating\nabout coronavirus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Praekelt said the\nspeed at which the bot has been adopted has been beyond expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;ve had an\nunprecedented success. More than 12 million people now have accessed the WHO\nline in the last 10 days since we launched. And we&#8217;ve now launched multiple\nother languages as well, including Arabic and Spanish and French and more\nlanguages to come. And so clearly, people are finding the information useful,\u201d\nhe said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, it\u2019s time to see\nwhether it\u2019s having an impact on users\u2019 behavior and health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI think the next step\nwill be to try and understand how people are interpreting that information and\nwhether it&#8217;s actually helping them to change their behavior,\u201d he added.&nbsp;\n\n\n\n\n\nSource:\nVoice of America\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON &#8211; A WhatsApp bot developed by a South African organization is helping millions of people around the world get the latest information about the coronavirus. At the time the virus broke out, Praekelt.org had already created digital tools to help people in the developing world improve their health and well-being. One of their most &#8230; <a title=\"South African-Created Mobile Alert Puts COVID Info Into Hands of Millions\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/southafricajournal.com\/south-african-created-mobile-alert-puts-covid-info-into-hands-of-millions\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about South African-Created Mobile Alert Puts COVID Info Into Hands of Millions\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>South African-Created Mobile Alert Puts COVID Info Into Hands of Millions - South Africa Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/southafricajournal.com\/south-african-created-mobile-alert-puts-covid-info-into-hands-of-millions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"South African-Created Mobile Alert Puts COVID Info Into Hands of Millions - South Africa Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"WASHINGTON &#8211; A WhatsApp bot developed by a South African organization is helping millions of people around the world get the latest information about the coronavirus. 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