Fighting the war against the world’s biggest killers with apps and information
Question : which is more effective at fighting the worlds biggest killers, technology, medicine, money or information?
Answer : We need a combination, but in our search for funds and quick fixes we should never overlook the power of knowledge spread as a multiplier for the effectiveness of those funds.
What do you know about the world’s biggest killers? Malaria is a parasite that lives in our blood and is passed from one human to another by female mosquitos. Motor-vehicles allow us to move people and goods around at high speed, but when the drivers lose control, adults and children are often maimed or killed. HIV is a constantly mutating virus that lives in the bloodstream, and if left untreated, overcomes the immune system resulting in debilitating illness and death. These along with others like Cholera and TB kill millions of people each year and ruin the lives of many more. They share one thing in common. We have the knowledge to prevent many of these deaths.
Malaria
Peter was a cook at the company where my father worked in Nigeria in the 80s. He had Malaria.
We loved Peter because he gave us extra dessert and always had a joke at the ready to make us smile. One day he was not there, and we asked our father where he was. “Don’t worry Peter has Malaria, he gets a bad fever sometimes but he will be back in a few weeks”.
Peter was back in a few weeks and we were overjoyed. It also explained his obsessive hatred of mosquitos. Of course we asked if we might catch Malaria from him. The lifecycle of the parasite was explained to us. We took our tablets everyday, sprayed our house and we never contracted Malaria. We also continued to play and joke with Peter, and enjoy the food he cooked.
In the last two centuries, some of the most feared diseases in the world have been cured or treated with modern medicine, but it is the spread of knowledge of their mechanisms, rehabilitation and prevention that has enabled us to overcome misinformation and change the world for the better.
Tackling Malaria is an expensive business, our resources are sadly not unlimited, so knowing which approaches are successful and how to make best use of those is essential.
If you are interested in the spread and fight against Malaria, then you can see the data for yourself. The World Health Organization Malaria app has data, trends, interactive maps and much more. It is a single comprehensive source of progress in the fight against the parasite and publicly available for all.
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/world-malaria-report/id1300199731
HIV
Like many diseases before it, HIV is a continued source of misery for millions, both because of its direct impact, and because of prejudice and misinformation. This app by the World Health Organization has thousands of pages of guidance, research, data, visualisations, testing tools and much more. For anyone in the healthcare or medical industry, there are few other easy to access sources with this much information all at your finger tips on one place.
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/who-hts-info/id1359010276
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.whohtsinfo
Road Safety
Not all killers are disease based. Traffic accidents kill and main millions, with almost every death being an avoidable tragedy for all those involved. We depend on our lawmakers to make good and well informed decisions, so that as we go about our daily lives pedestrians, cyclists, motorists and lorries can coexist safely. What constitutes a good law? Are the streets becoming safer or more dangerous? Which countries are the safest? This app by the World Health Organization is an invaluable source of knowledge, stats, maps and information on the current state of the war against avoidable traffic accidents.
The information in these apps is colossal and has taken armies of people to assemble, check and verify. Mobile technology has made all this available at the touch of a button. Please downloads the apps if you are interested or share the links with anyone you know who might be.
