Corona in Bangladesh: Ensuring authentic information on COVID-19
To address the necessity and accessibility of verified information on COVID-19, four friends living in four different parts of Dhaka developed and launched 'Corona in Bangladesh', an online platform featuring a compilation of local and international from reliable resources, on March 21. Assembling updates through news reports and articles from World Health Organisation (WHO), Worldometer, Johns Hopkins University, IEDCR, and other such dependable news sources, this platform aims at raising awareness and reducing panic in Coronavirus pandemic.
Fahim Murshed, a student at the department of Organisation Strategy and Leadership in University of Dhaka, along with 3 Computer Science and Engineering students from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Tasin Ishmam, Aftarul Islam Monmoy, and Aniruddha Ganguly initiated this website in collaboration with a group of advisors who are doctors and individuals from DGHS. "It started with Tasin's blog listing all the important international trustable website links that provides data and advices on the novel coronavirus," mentions Fahim. "This idea led to a conversation where we discussed the prospects of building a platform, in Bangla and English, which would present the information in a more intuitive and interactive manner."
Noticing a steep increase in internet usage, especially web surfing, the team also designed a quiz named 'Mythbuster' with 15 questions, to help eliminate false info and rumours regarding this epidemic. Within just a week, this online quiz reached over 7,500 people.
The website contains live updates with live counts, featured news from different Bangladeshi news portals, prevention tips, and general information on the origin, symptoms and global status of COVID-19. They also post prevention tips a detailed DOs and DON'Ts list to aid people's queries regarding safety. The website also contains different helpline numbers and list of hospitals that are currently carrying out COVID-19 tests or treatments. For individuls who want to interact personally with the team and other necessary individuals, the website features four Call to Actions (CTAs) to direct the users to different components of the platform.
The team, in association with Youth Policy Forum (YPF), prepare the daily updates which get published in the 'Daily Updates' section. Currently, the 'Corona in Bangladesh' team is working on adding 4 new segments to the platform, including monitoring visualiser, profiles of organisations who are currently working in the field and detailed picturesque pages raise awareness. They are also looking for collaborations with other such platforms to reach masses.