This year, WiRED International celebrated its 19th anniversary of bringing life-saving medical and health information at no charge to people in underserved communities around the world.
The history of poliomyelitis, or polio, proves the life-saving value of vaccination. Throughout the first half of the 20th century polio paralyzed hundreds of thousands of people, mostly children. Today polio has been 99% eradicated, but that last 1% remains a challenge.
WiRED International’s Certificate Program continues to attract community members in Kisumu, Kenya. Recently, 62 people earned certificates for completing modules from WiRED’s Health Learning Center of more than 380 topics. Among the more popular modules are HIV/AIDS Basic Information and Treatment, Malaria, Malaria for Health Workers, Family Planning, STIs and Asthma.
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.