WiRED International joins organizations and people all over the world in celebrating World Humanitarian Day. The General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) named August 19 World Humanitarian Day to mark the anniversary of the bombing of their headquarters in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2003. This same explosion also damaged WiRED’s Medical Information Center at the Spinal Cord Hospital in Baghdad.
Cancer is frightening. Almost everyone has been touched by it in some way, and the number of new cases is expected to rise by 70% in the next 20 years. In fact, cancer is the leading cause of death worldwide. Annually, lung, liver, stomach, colorectal, breast and esophageal cancers kill more than eight million people globally.
How much do you know about human anatomy? A knowledge of anatomy is central to understanding illnesses and how to prevent them. WiRED International just launched a three-part series on anatomy.
He who sings prays twice, St. Augustine is believed to have said. The St. Kizito Choir Pandipieri, Kenya, brings this saying to life every time they sing.
WiRED International’s medical and health information was not available in Haiti — until now. This past spring WiRED International’s Board Chair Anthony Hodge and Director Gary Selnow, Ph.D., met Yen-Len Tang, M.D., a California-based physician, who was about to leave on a volunteer medical mission to Haiti.
Learning about asthma just got easy: WiRED International now offers an Express module on asthma. Some 235 million people, or one in 12, currently suffer from asthma.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified tuberculosis (TB) as an emerging global threat. The importance of monitoring and treating the disease cannot be overstated, especially because TB can morph into serious drug-resistant varieties.
Armenian children at the Orran NGO (nongovernmental organization) celebrated World Oral Health Day by learning about dental hygiene. Health learning events, employing WiRED’s training modules, have been sponsored by WiRED Armenia, our close partners on many critical community education projects.
WiRED International can now distribute vital medical and health information to isolated underserved areas of the world without relying on the Internet or the power grid. We did this on our recent trip to Peru when we successfully tested new hardware configurations on remote stretches of the Peruvian Amazon. This new portable bundle, called Pack ’n Go, includes solar panels, a lithium-ion battery, a compact projector and a laptop loaded with our programs — all fitting easily in a backpack.
Denis Onyango is a staff member at the WiRED International medical and health education center in Obunga, Kenya. What follows is an excerpt from Mr. Oyango’s report to WiRED.