BENGALURU: When John Santhosh visited Japan recently, he was taken aback by the fact that everyone wore a mask and he too was handed one. There was a general sense of fear, which kept escalating all the way to India. When he reached the Bengaluru airport, where gun-like thermometers were pointed at incoming fliers to check their body temperature.
Fever is a symptom of the coronavirus – a global health emergency declared by the World Health Organisation. “The fear was tangible,” recalled John Santhosh, CEO and Founder of GIEOM and Founder of Billion Lives.
He noticed that the sense of irrational and persistent fear was prevalent not just in the country, but globally. He set up a global helpline will go live starting February 17 to address the anxieties that people have in a constructive manner. Apart from English, the team of social workers, doctors and psychologists from various organisations includes Chinese, Italian, German, and Spanish speakers.
His Social-Tech startup Billion Lives, will be the technological partner which will provide the online platform for people to call up the resource persons. Since it’s an internet-based platform, it caters to all nationalities, he told TNIE.