The fight against covid19 is also a fight for information. The WHO was clear from the beginning when it stated that in addition to an epidemic we were facing an infodemic . He was referring to the risk of hoaxes and rumors, but also to the importance that the dissemination of reliable and verified data and advice would play. For this reason, a chatbot has been incorporated into its communication strategy.WhatsApp, apparently the easiest way to communicate with citizens in a massive and personalized way. It is a tool based on South African technology that has shown the best interaction results. It was the channel of the South African Ministry of Health and is now the official channel in nine countries, in addition to the WHO, it is available in 14 languages and has sent 500 million messages. (To use it in Spanish, click on this language and start the conversation with a "Hello").
South Africa is still the African country hardest hit by the pandemic, to the point that one in four patients on the continent is South African, with more than 53,000 cases detected. He was also one of the first to verify cases, more than three months ago, and to take containment measures. On March 14, with 38 confirmed cases in the country, the South African Ministry of Health announced the launch of Covid19 Connect, a chatbot that would be the official line of transmission of information about the epidemic on WhatsApp. The South African Government was one of the first to use this channel. Less than a week later, the World Health Organization announced that it incorporated in its communication strategy an adaptation of that South African tool that had caught the attention of those responsible for the international organization, due to its immediate results and its potential.
"We contacted the WHO," explains Debbie Rogers CEO of Praekelt, the company responsible for the tool, "to request the use of its content related to the prevention, symptoms and treatment of covid-19, within of the WhatsApp helpline that we had developed for the Government of South Africa. And those responsible for WHO considered that it was worth launching the tool on a global scale. "
A country with a mobile
South Africa does not reach 60 million inhabitants and around 32 million are WhatsApp users, nine of each with Internet access. On a global scale, the messaging platform itself announced in February that it had reached two billion users worldwide.
WHO's official WhatsApp HealthAlert Helpline was launched on March 20, 2020 in English and later in six other languages. The tool has grown and is currently the official channel in South Africa, Uganda, Mozambique, Timor-Leste, Bangladesh, Madagascar, New Zealand, Ethiopia and Australia "and more countries are expected to join," says Rogers. Users can use it in 14 languages, including some African national languages, Arabic, Spanish, French, Hindi, English, Italian, Portuguese, Afrikaans, IsiZulu, SeSotho, Xhosa, Amharic. , Malagasy and Bengali.
Potential
Debbie Rogers herself attributes HealthAlert's potential to the use of Turn.io technology that has been successful in managing that immediate response from the chatbot . “Its automated functionality has managed to prioritize the most important or critical queries and offer the answers in a very short time. On the other hand, this technology has developed an understanding of natural language that has allowed it to adapt to the use of multiple languages, "explains Rogers. Hence, it has become an attractive tool for WHO to see how it can provide localized responses.
In addition, Rogers notes that HealthAlert "responds to the most basic inquiries and concerns about the epidemic, and directs users to accurate sources of information when necessary," while "relieving traffic to facility helplines. Calls ”, to which you can refer some of the queries in case of critical questions that require human interaction. And in that regard, the CEO of Praekelt praises Turn.io's technology for responsiveness enhancement: “Machine learning and natural language understanding enables you to automatically prioritize the most critical queries, helping to manage conversations effectively. ”
This technology is actually part of Praekelt's love affair with WhatsApp, during which the South African company has tried to take away from the messaging platform all the possibilities of using it for social impact. Praekelt's previous experience also gives some clues to the good performance obtained by HealthAlert. "A little over two years ago," explains Debbie Rogers, "we started using WhatsApp to communicate with both expectant and first-time mothers in an existing national maternal health program in South Africa called MomConnect. In principle, WhatsApp has a wide implementation and, on the other hand, it has very low financial implications. With use we realized that the engagement experience was very rich and that is why we considered it to be a viable and effective means of providing access to vital health information and having important conversations on a large scale. ”
Thus, the communication management technology through WhatsApp that was developed to respond to this maternal and child health program ended up becoming independent and used in many other projects. Without going any further, the chatbot launched by the International Fact-Checking Network to disprove hoaxes related to Covid19 around the world, is also based on Turn.io technology.
In the MomConnect experience, the drivers found that mothers who received the information through the instant messaging platform were 6.7 times more likely to interact than when communicating via SMS, in addition to having three times more availability to stay involved in the communication program. The CEO of Praekelt speaks with satisfaction of that previous experience of MomConnect in which health, mass communication and a channel like WhatsApp were related. "Using this technology, MomConnect sends more than 320,000 health messages to pregnant women per month and receives more than 10,000 health questions weekly," says Rogers with pride.
Formula
With this assessment, it is not surprising that they have decided to use a similar formula in the face of the Covid19 emergency, and neither is it that the WHO has wanted to incorporate it into its strategy. In parallel, the WHO-supported tool also offers functionality through USSD "to ensure access to information for people without access to the Internet or data packages," says Rogers, who notes: "This is essential in countries with limited connectivity or where there are large proportions of citizens who cannot afford the sometimes high prices of data packages ”.
For the CEO of the company that has developed HealthAlert “the role of ICT in the fight against covid-19 is crucial because they provide an effective means of mass access to information, but also because they have offered other solutions and resources during the pandemic". Debbie Rogers insists that "that the public have the best possible health information is essential during an epidemic", from the point of view of the fight against disinformation that "can lead to behavior that amplifies the transmission of the disease". "Applications like WhatsApp provide an ideal environment for the development of information services and tools due to their massive use and penetration," she recalls.
Accessories
For its part, HealthAlert incorporates other supplements such as HealthCheck, which allows early detection, mapping and case management. "Users can use it," Rogers explains, "to self-assess their Covid19 risk with a simple form. Based on their responses, their symptoms, or their exposure history, they are classified as low, moderate, or high risk, and some measures are recommended that should be taken, whether they be remote medical advice or a suggestion to visit a health center. ”
HealthCheck also offers data to authorities to plan their response, although the CEO of Praekelt steps out of the broader debate: “HealthCheck data is private and secure and should only be used by authorities to design the map of possible infections. or future outbreaks and to develop epidemiological models to make decisions about national responses to Covid19 ”. The latest plug-in is a communication channel for HealthWorkerAlert professionals, offering official information for those at the forefront of the fight against the epidemic, but also psychosocial assistance.