Health Ministry Offering Real-Time Covid-19 Answers on Twitter Via @CovidIndiaSeva

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) has introduced Covid India Seva, a Twitter handle that aims to offer fast, real time responses to user queries about Covid-19 related topic. The handle was announced by union health minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan, who stated that on the @CovidIndiaSeva handle, "experts will share authoritative public health information regarding Covid-19 swiftly at scale, helping to build a direct channel for communication with citizens."

The channel is being hosted on Twitter Seva, which is specifically designed for such tasks. The Covid India Seva handle will work as an official digital hotline of sorts, through which individuals can seek help from government authorities. Twitter has further claimed that its multi-lingual platform (in which Hindi is the second most used language after English) will help the government reach out to a wider volume of users and answer their queries. This can further help curb any Covid-19 related misinformation on Twitter, by providing an official information channel for users to interact with.

Twitter India, on this note, has said that it is attempting to upskill government employees to better use its platform as part of Covid-19 response management. Twitter has already offered official Covid-19 helplines at a state level for the governments of Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, and along with the convenience of the format of seeking help, has further underlined that "tweeting with your query does not require you to reveal any private or sensitive information such as contact details, identity documents, personal health records, etc."

Further highlighting the platform's role through the Covid-19 pandemic and nation-wide lockdown, Mahima Kaul, public policy director of Twitter India, said in a statement, "To navigate this global health crisis, we need a collaborative approach between the government and our industry. Our work has never been more critical and our service has never been in higher demand. People from all parts of the country are taking to Twitter to be equipped with the quality information from authoritative sources."

The Twitter handle for Covid India Seva is now live, and can be accessed in all supported Indian languages by simply tweeting to @CovidIndiaSeva.