Due to dramatic advances in transportation, a viral outbreak that began halfway around the world now assaults our entire country. It is sickening and killing even people in small towns like Odon, Indiana. That’s where my 91-year-old brother is confined to a small room in an assisted living facility. He’s recuperating from hip surgery and isolated to hopefully avoid contracting the deadly virus.
“The coronavirus has crushed healthcare systems around the world. And it’s especially cruel in the poorest regions, where there are fewer than one doctor for 20,000 people. In these places, officials are calling on community health workers to help the sick and teach people how to avoid contracting the virus…”
These opening words of WiRED International’s just released video go on to tell the story of WiRED’S Community Health Worker (CHW) Training Program. The program includes health communication, community health instruction, health surveillance and continuing education. This video showcases photos taken all over the world in the low-resource communities where WiRED has distributed its free health training material for almost 25 years.
Today COVID-19 dominates the world health stage, but equally deadly neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) affect more than one billion people in many countries where WiRED International distributes its health training material.
All over the world, WiRED International’s COVID-19 Module Series is providing free-access education about the virus and related topics to organizations, schools, students and healthcare professionals.
In response to the growing pandemic, the WiRED–Armenia team conducted two health learning sessions this month using WiRED’s Coronavirus Module — now available in the Armenian language.
Two years ago, WiRED made it easy for millions of people using Mac and Windows to download our health training modules — for free. Our innovative Health Module Access Program has just added an app for Android users opening HealthMAP to millions more, allowing free module downloads to smart phones, tablets and laptops.
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.”
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.
Solving the climate crisis. Stopping infectious diseases. Preparing for epidemics. Training health workers. These issues and more make up the World Health Organization’s (WHO) newly issued 13 global health challenges which we face in the next decade.
Nurses and midwives play a vital role in providing health services to people in low-resource communities where doctors are in alarmingly short supply. To honor their work, the World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners named 2020 as the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife.
Imagine this: You’re taken seriously ill, have no idea what’s wrong with you, and there isn’t a doctor for 75 miles. Imagine this: You’re pregnant, are having severe headaches and blurred vision, and no one in your village knows what’s wrong with you.