Global Health

Navigating Flu during COVID-19

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Getting an influenza shot is more important than ever to protect yourself, your family and your community from flu — especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

What is the difference between the flu and COVID-19? Both are contagious respiratory illnesses, and, although they share many symptoms, they are caused by different viruses — flu from influenza viruses and COVID-19 from the new SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Global Health

Protect Yourself and Your Loved Ones

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During the COVID-19 crisis, when life can feel stressful and out of control, you have the power to protect yourself, your family and your community from some of the worst diseases on the planet.

As the world waits for a COVID-19 vaccine, it is important to remember that vaccinations can prevent more than 20 other life-threatening diseases such as polio, tetanus, diphtheria, measles, whooping cough, cancers caused by HPV, pneumonia, meningitis, shingles and more.

Community Health Worker Related

Smile Back at WIRED

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The summer is fast coming to a close, but you can help support WIRED International into the fall and beyond by signing up for AmazonSmile.

Buying through AmazonSmile costs you nothing more. By shopping through AmazonSmile, 0.5% of the price of your purchase will be donated directly to WIRED by Amazon. The percentage taken out of each purchase can go a long way in expanding WiRED’s work in low-resource areas of the world — especially through our Community Health Worker Program — as COVID-19 and other serious diseases continue to batter these underserved populations.

Community Health Worker Related

WIRED Community Health Workers Report from Kenya

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In low-resource communities around the world, people often are unsure about basic health practices, such as proper handwashing techniques and safe food preparation, much less how to protect themselves from COVID-19.

WiRED International brought our Community Health Worker (CHW) Training Program to Kisumu, Kenya earlier this year, and since then graduates of the month-long course are tending to the health of the populations they serve.

Global Health

COVID-19 and Airborne Transmission

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As much as we continue to learn about COVID-19, there is much we still don’t know.

Government guidance can be inaccurate, indecisive and even political, while the epidemiologists, scientists and world health agencies continue their research to nail down the transmission risks and prevention measures.

Global Health

Thoughts on Coping with the COVID-19 Crisis

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WiRED International staff writers Olivia and Meghan Spirito sat down with their parents, Christopher and Jennifer, during a family dinner to discuss how COVID-19 is affecting their lives and to share their thoughts on volunteering for WiRED. The sisters came up with questions before dinner to ask each other and their parents. They recorded their answers during the dinner and then wrote the conversation down for this article.