Johannesburg — Months after successfully launching COVID-19 Connect in South Africa and the World Organisation's global HealthAlert on WhatsApp, Praekelt.org is planning to launch a similar service for health workers in South Africa.

The two existing WhatsApp services provide users with relevant information to help them make informed and effective decisions during the novel coronavirus pandemic, and have been accessed by more than 20 million people.

There is going to be a crisis in many countries where other diseases are going to start to be really negatively affected by the coronavirus pandemic and the fact that so many people are not scared of the virus," said Praekelt.org's Managing Director, Debbie Rogers.

"We knew we had been using WhatsApp quite successfully as a platform for MomConnect and that we could fairly easily and quickly get up a service that could respond to COVID-19... So within a couple weeks, we launched the national WhatsApp line here in South Africa, which is 0600 123 456.

"I think this platform has allowed us to get health communication tools into the hands of millions of people worldwide in a way that would have taken possibly years previously, and it's very important is to make sure that we're not just addressing the pandemic but that we're setting up tools and platforms that can be used by ministries of health for all kinds of other health issues," Rogers said.