These days, the word on the street in war-torn Syria is that hospitals are best avoided — even if you’re injured. “Sometimes we hear that people feel the home is safer than the hospital,” said Mohamed Elamein, of World Health Organization in Gaziantep, Turkey, close to the Syrian border.
Communities often oppose plans to build a clinic in their town or village fearing it will be targeted, he said. A new digital instant messaging tool that relies on smartphone application WhatsApp has been developed by the WHO and its partners to detect, verify and log the devastating consequences of such attacks. Syria has been named the most dangerous place on earth for healthcare providers by a Lancet Commission on Syria report, published in March, which revealed that more than 800 medical workers had been killed since 2011. The new tool piloted in Gaziantep by health organisations working in Syria involves a WhatsApp group of nearly 300 trusted contacts on the ground.
In Syria, the WhatsApp tool identified 402 attacks against health facilities and medical workers between November 2015 and December 2016.
The tool is already being deployed in Jordan and Pakistan, and the WHO plans to roll it out in Iraq and Yemen. The UN agency is also considering its use in other troubled hotspots, including in Africa. During the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, 25,000 people subscribed to the BBC’s first “Lifeline” humanitarian service using WhatsApp. It disseminated public information via audio, image and text message alerts to combat the disease’s spread.
But instant messaging is far from a panacea in crisis zones, and some experts say it can also be used to fuel violence. In Central African Republic, diamond smuggling gangs are plundering the country’s resources and funding conflict by making sales via social media sites, said a recent report. — AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
