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This week, the conversation revolves around communication to promote health. Social media has been of great value, enabling easy information exchange and strengthening communication. According to report, 100 million people from Africa are on Facebook.

The question is, “how can we use social media for epidemic control and rapid response?” The role played by social media during the last Ebola outbreak cannot be over emphasized. We can use this to control several other epidemics.

Related Article: #StayAlert Week 2: Today, A Disease-Free World is Possible

This week, the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) hosted the Facebook Health initiative to a workshop on the use of  social media to promote health. Among the speakers were Lisa Foster, who is the Head of Global Policy Programs and Sherry Dzinoreva, who works with Economic and Health Initiatives.

Facebook is on a journey to strengthen health communication and improve health reach. With the aim to help develop a safer world, we are very much interested.

The Head of Global Policy Programs @facebook Lisa Foster introducing us to Facebook at the workshop.#NCDCfbHealth pic.twitter.com/tI1OMuw5N1 — NCDC (@NCDCgov) 21 February 2017

Sherry J. Dzinoreva sharing her insights on @facebook for health. pic.twitter.com/cWLUblC93O — NCDC (@NCDCgov) 21 February 2017

 

Yesterday at the @facebook Workshop. Learnt about the value of Facebook for global health communications!#NCDCfbHealth pic.twitter.com/NXbV4mi5jc

— Tinu (@Tinu_AKD) 22 February 2017

For Us @nighealthwatch @facebook is a very important tool in enhancing our reach and engagement-@ekemma .#NCDCfbHealth pic.twitter.com/tRYnqtjxeu

— NCDC (@NCDCgov) 21 February 2017

.@facebook provides an opportunity for people to connect & express themselves; how can we penetrate this behaviour for health#NCDCfbHealth pic.twitter.com/A0tMXOOiiD — NCDC (@NCDCgov) 21 February 2017

Also during the week, we used social media to educate our audience about the Global Health Security Agenda. This is a collaborative initiative by different countries and international organizations to promote responsive health system in the world. The vision of GHSA is to attain a world safe and secure from global health threats posed by infectious diseases.

From our Twitter Poll last week, a great percentage of the public on average did not know what GHSA was about. So we decided to carry out a Twitter Chat to educate the public and tell the GHSA story. Find our storified content here.

Read our storified Twitter chat about the Global Health Security Agenda https://t.co/R6wEcm03cR #EAonGHSA — (now) EpidAlert (@EbolaAlert) 22 February 2017