On March 20, the World Health Organization announced its latest tactic in its fight against COVID-19 – a new on the popular Facebook-owned messaging app, WhatsApp. Users simply sign up to the service by sending a ‘hi’ message to one of seven Swiss phone numbers – one for each of the seven languages offered. It replies by asking subscribers to select from a list of information options ranging from the latest COVID-19 numbers to myth busters.

With 2 billion users, WhatsApp is an ideal channel for the WHO to communicate trusted health information to people around the world – not least because the messaging app has also become a – covering how it spreads, symptoms, false cures and conspiracy theories. With over 5 billion mobile phones users globally, this service meets people where they already look for information. And with information about the virus changing daily, a health alert from a reliable source is needed now more than ever.

This is not the first time WhatsApp has been used during a global health emergency. In 2014, ±«Óãtv News created an Ebola service on WhatsApp in English and French, which at its height had over 25,000 subscribers, most of whom were in West Africa where Ebola was most prevalent. Here at the ±«Óãtv’s international charity, we also created a Krio-language version in Sierra Leone at that time, which gained 14,000 subscribers.

Advances in technology mean the WHO service has in some ways improved upon the ±«Óãtv experience. Unlike the WHO’s informational bot service, the ±«Óãtv services allowed subscribers to send messages to the news and charity teams running the services – which were read by humans, rather than generating automated responses. Having people text or record their questions back to the ±«Óãtv provided a window into what ordinary people were talking about, what questions they had and what rumours were going around. This helped inform how best to respond to the needs and questions of those facing Ebola in their communities. But this feature presented a huge challenge of managing an incredibly high volume of messages – a prospect which would be untenable for the WHO’s service. It is reported to have racked up .

Learning from Ebola
There are lessons that the WHO can take from the ±«Óãtv messaging app experience.

At the height of the Ebola crisis, the ±«Óãtv provided content about three times a day: much of it information from the WHO, the Centers for Disease Control and UNICEF. WHO’s Health Alert, by contrast, is demand-driven. Users ping the service to request the latest information from the original option list, rather than messages being pushed out at regular intervals. Some may consider this a considerate approach to avoid unwanted spam. But if I’ve been busy for a couple of days and not had a chance to ask the alert what I want to know, it stays silent. Sending me what I need to know each day would keep me better informed.

The appeal of WhatsApp lies in its full potential – including audio and visual messages, which are particularly useful for users with low literacy levels. The ±«Óãtv’s content included images, text and audio clips (video was avoided to reduce the burden on data). ±«Óãtv Media Action’s Krio version even included a serialized Ebola radio drama.

But the WHO content is still text-heavy and not yet share-worthy; even its emojis are hard to locate or interpret. It feels more likely to appeal to educated officials than to a general audience.

WHO Health Alert welcome message and content example

Indian government's MyGov Corona Helpdesk WhatsApp