Cardiovascular disease (CVD), which is the world’s number one killer, causes the deaths of 17.5 million people each year. In response, WiRED International updated its Heart Diseases Module, a comprehensive educational course for general audiences.

Recent WiRED International stories about John Oduor Wanjir and his project using WiRED training materials in Kenya prisons have generated an enormous response of comments on WiRED’s Facebook page, with more than a quarter-million reaches.

Antibiotics are failing. World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan, M.D., said in a September address to the United Nations, “Antimicrobial resistance is a global crisis — a slow-motion tsunami. The situation is bad and getting worse. ”

Over the years people have sustained WiRED by giving time, talent and money. This September WiRED Director Gary Selnow, Ph.D., traveled to Kenya with a 50-pound duffel full of clothes and toys. All these items were generously donated by WiRED’s supporters, volunteers and board members — Friends of WiRED — in response to Dr. Selnow’s request.

“I, John Oduor, come from a vulnerable background and live with a disability. [John has a nonfunctioning arm.] I saw my mother die from a disease I did not know and understand when I was 14. I later learned that she had cancer of the esophagus. This caused me lots of psychological problems and pain.

In 2002 a Kenyan named John Oduor Wanjir attended a WiRED International training in Mombasa, where WiRED International Director Dr. Gary Selnow taught a small group of young people basic computer and Internet skills. From that beginning, John now uses WiRED health education programs to teach men in two Kenyan prisons about health.

It is time to get vaccinated for the 2016-2017 flu season. Influenza is a contagious respiratory disease, which is easily spread, and which causes severe illness and death in high-risk populations, especially in medically underserved communities.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, outbreaks of cholera have added to the rising death toll in Haiti, where people need crucial health information to combat the potential for a widespread cholera epidemic.

The World Health Organization estimates that the number of annual cancer cases will rise from 14 million in 2012 to 22 million within the next two decades. More than 60% of the world’s total new annual cases occur in Africa, Asia and Central and South America.