Amazon Web Services is helping the World Health Organization on a slew of projects to respond to the COVID-19 crisis, including launching an app and supporting the organization’s goals to aid health workers around the world.
WHO has launched an app intended to support healthcare professionals around the world care for COVID-19 patients and protect themselves. AWS helped WHO launch the app, which enables workers to access educational material and guidance from WHO. The app was launched a full year ahead of schedule, according to a press release. It also offers virtual skills workshops and live training for healthcare workers. WHO also has an interactive map, dubbed the situation dashboard, giving country-specific figures related to COVID-19.
"Thanks to support from tech companies, WHO was able to enhance the COVID-19 situation dashboard," WHO Chief Information Officer Bernardo Mariano said in a statement. "Countries rely on this data to see how well certain interventions are working in other countries, to help them decide whether to do the same."
AWS is helping WHO share epidemiological data with its staff, public health bodies, Member States and health actors by providing automatic web content extraction, expertise in data analytics and processing and storage, the press release noted.
WHO is working on a unified global early warning system, Epidemic Intelligence from Open Sources initiative (EIOS), that uses news reports and open source information to determine public health threats. EIOS found the first COVID-19 article at the end of 2019 and was collecting more than 120,000 articles daily about the COVID-19 pandemic by mid-March.
AWS is also stepping in to help WHO analyze all this content from around the world related to COVID-19 using a machine learning tool to distinguish between reliable and unreliable content. Machine learning is also being applied to speed up the production of learning materials across languages to make courses quickly available on WHO’s Open WHO, an interactive online platform for frontline responders to find training courses on health emergencies.
Further, AWS is helping WHO increase its capacity due to increase activity on its website and providing fundraising support.
Amy joined TriMed Media as a Senior Writer for HealthExec after covering home care for three years. When not writing about all things healthcare, she fulfills her lifelong dream of becoming a pirate by sailing in regattas and enjoying rum. Fun fact: she sailed 333 miles across Lake Michigan in the Chicago Yacht Club "Race to Mackinac."