The World Health Organization and the Wikimedia Foundation are expanding access to reliable information about COVID-19 on Wikipedia

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that manages Wikipedia, announced today collaborations to expand public access to the latest and most reliable information on COVID-19.

The collaboration will make available public health information of trust under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license at a time when countries are facing a constant re-emergence of the COVID-19 virus, and social stability increasingly depends on a common understanding of the facts of the public.

Through collaboration, people everywhere will be able to access and share WHO infographics, videos and other public health assets Wikimedia Commons, a digital library of free images and other multimedia.

In addition to these new freely licensed resources, more than 250,000 volunteer editors on Wikipedia can also upgrade and expand the website COVID-19 coverage, which currently offers more than 5,200 articles related to coronavirus in 175 languages. This WHO content will be translated into both national and regional languages ​​through Wikipedia’s vast network of global volunteers.

“Equal access to reliable health information is crucial to maintaining people’s safety and information during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization. “Our new collaboration with the Wikimedia Foundation will increase access to reliable health data. WHO from several countries, languages ​​and devices. “

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the WHO has taken steps to prevent “infodemia”– defined by the organization as “an excessive amount of information and the rapid spread of misleading or fictitious news, images and videos”.

Wikipedia editors were similarly on the front lines preventing the spread of misinformation surrounding the coronavirus, ensuring that pandemic information is based on reliable sources and regularly updated on Wikipedia.

By making verified pandemic information available to more people on one of the world’s most visited sources of knowledge, organizations want to help combat this infodemia and ensure that everyone can access critical public health information.

“Access to information is key to healthy communities and should be addressed,” said Katherine Maher, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation. “This becomes even clearer in times of global health crises when information can have life-changing consequences. All institutions, from governments to international health agencies, scientific bodies to Wikipedia, must do their part to ensure equal and reliable access to public health knowledge for everyone, no matter where you live or the language you speak. “

The WHO has served as the leading international health agency leading the global response to the coronavirus outbreak. From the beginning, the WHO has worked to rapidly establish international coordination, increase countries’ preparedness and response, and accelerate research and innovation. Today, as information on the transmission and epidemiology of the virus develops, the WHO continues to provide basic guidelines and recommendations for public health to governments, communities, and individuals everywhere.

At the same time, Wikipedia volunteer editors, many of whom are from the medical community, create, update, and translate Wikipedia articles with information from reliable pandemic sources. Studies have shown that Wikipedia is one of the top ten sites in the world frequently reviewed sources for health data.

Currently, readers can access the WHO mythological series of infographics on Wikimedia Commons. Infographics, which focus on resolving common misconceptions about COVID-19, are also available to Wikipedia editors to include in Wikipedia articles.

In the coming months, the Wikimedia Foundation and WHO will continue to transfer resources to Wikimedia Commons and work with Wikipedia volunteer editors to better understand the information needs gaps in Wikipedia articles related to COVID-19 and how WHO resources can help fill those gaps. .

In addition, under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, other organizations, individuals, and websites can more easily share these materials on their own platforms, without having to deal with stricter copyright restrictions.

About the World Health Organization

The World Health Organization provides global leadership in public health within the United Nations system. Founded in 1948, the WHO works with 194 member states, in six regions and from more than 149 offices, to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable. Our goal for the period 2019-2023 is to ensure that one billion more people have universal health insurance, to protect one billion more people from emergencies and to provide further billions of people with better health and well-being.

For updates on COVID-19 and public health tips to protect yourself from coronavirus, visit www.who.int and follow the WHO further Twitter,, Facebook,, Instagram,, LinkedIn,, TikTok,, Pinterest,, Snapchat,, YouTube, i Snatch.

About the Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organization that manages Wikipedia and other free knowledge projects of Wikimedia. Our vision is a world in which every man can freely participate in the sum of his knowledge. We believe that everyone can potentially contribute to our shared knowledge and that everyone should be able to freely access that knowledge. We host Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects, build software experiences to read, contribute to, and share Wikimedia content, support volunteer communities and Wikimedia-enabled partners, and advocate for policies that enable Wikimedia advances and free knowledge. The Wikimedia Foundation is a U.S. tax-exempt 501 (c) (3) organization with offices in San Francisco, California, USA.