Armenia has survived earthquakes, war and genocide. Today, poverty and the lack of reliable medical information are creating a healthcare crisis for the people of this Eurasian country.

WiRED International has received a significant two-year grant from the Medtronic Foundation as seed money to launch the Center for the Development and Distribution of NCD (Non-Communicable Disease) Education Programs.

All of us at WiRED would like to wish happy holidays to the many people who have become part of our family over the years: doctors and nurses, community health workers, and ordinary people who have used our training materials to improve their knowledge of medicine and community health.

WiRED is pleased to announce that retired Vice Admiral Adam M. Robinson, M.D., has joined our Governing Board. Dr. Robinson was the 36th Surgeon General of the United States Navy (2007-2011). “As a physician, I have devoted myself to helping people in need,” he said. “We are here on this earth to help one another.”

As WiRED looks forward to a busy new year, it seems a good time to reflect on our work in 2012 and share some plans for exciting new projects that will expand our reach in war-torn and developing communities worldwide.

Three new Community Health Information (CHI) centers are now up and running in Quilalí and Chinandega, Nicaragua, and Marcovia, Honduras. Upgraded CHI libraries are also installed in Kisumu, Kenya.

WiRED International is partnering with a team of physicians in Australia to create a project with potential for global medical benefits. Funded by the Medtronic Foundation, this series will train doctors and nurses around the world.

Most children in the United States and other Western countries are screened for congenital heart defects when they are born and during their first year of life. Once detected, these heart defects can often be corrected, and the children go on to lead normal, healthy lives.

Carolyn Wallin and Veronica Ades have never met, but both women recently took the same innovative action to save lives in Africa: They personally delivered donated laptops and WiRED Community Health Information (CHI) e-libraries to medical professionals in developing regions of Tanzania and Uganda.

Remember the time you had strep throat as a kid? How much your throat hurt, how you had to go to the doctor and take medicine for over a week and stay home from school until you were better? That was no fun, to be sure, but if that’s what happened to you when you caught strep throat as a child, you can consider yourself very fortunate. In the United States, strep throat is treated, and that’s the end of the story.