As the coronavirus pandemic grows, schools throughout the United States and all over the world are closing and making plans for long-distance learning.
Contributing to online education, WiRED International, a U.S.-based non-profit, is offering a free access training package that provides students with a close look at the coronavirus and several related health topics.
The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic is now officially a pandemic, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Along with the entire global health community, WiRED International hopes that the coronavirus (COVID-19) will be contained quickly — but that may not happen. Herculean efforts in molecular and clinical virology are being carried out worldwide so as to comprehensively understand COVID-19. However, it is unlikely that vaccines or drugs will be available this year to protect us or limit the infection within us. Only symptomatic support is available at this time.
The new coronavirus is a global threat. People hear a lot about the virus, but many still don’t understand how it is spread, treated or prevented. Schools, civic and faith organizations and their leaders need up-to-date, accessible information to provide members with accurate, understandable and useful information.
The WiRED International team completed the first field test of our Community Health Worker (CHW) Training Program this week in Kisumu, Kenya. More than two years in the making, WiRED Executive Director Gary Selnow, Ph.D., said, “The comprehensive content and the delivery aspects of this basic community health worker training program make it the first of its kind anywhere in the world.”
WiRED International’s Coronavirus Module is now available in Mandarin and Spanish. How did these translations come about? Maryam Othman, M.D., M.P.H., is a WiRED board member who coordinates our Health Learning Center of 400+ modules. She is also director of the Global and Community Center at Western University of Health Sciences (WesternU) in California.
As the spread of the new coronavirus headlines the news this month, February is also a busy month for health observances. WiRED International provides training modules and, in some cases, special series for February health occasions. Some of these relevant modules have been translated into languages such as Arabic, Chinese, French, Portuguese and Spanish.
On February 2 WiRED International – Armenia hosted a seminar on diabetes at the Tatev Tourism Information Center in the rural village of Tatev, Armenia. Avetisyan Jaklin, a Tatev Medical Center doctor, led the two-and-a-half hour interactive session using the Armenian language version of WiRED’s Diabetes Series. The 12 participants included nurses and doctors together with several people with diabetes.
In quick response to the global coronavirus crisis, WiRED International’s medical writing team has created a health learning module on the infection. The module is based on information and guidance from the world’s most authoritative sources: the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For several weeks now, world health agencies and media outlets have been informing the public about the risks and spread of the coronavirus — 2019-nCoV — first discovered in late December in China’s Hubei Province.