Tencent to introduce WebMD’s content on WeChat to improve reliability of medical information in China
Nearly 60 per cent of China’s population use WeChat as a major source of medical and health information
Chinese internet giant Tencent will introduce medical content from New York health care site WebMD to its messaging and social media super-app WeChat, in an attempt to fill the gap for more reliable sources of online medical information in China.
A recent content-licensing deal between Tencent and WebMD, the financial details of which weren’t disclosed, allows the Shenzhen-based company to translate WebMD’s health and medical content – including articles and videos – for its one billion active WeChat users and Tencent’s other messaging app QQ, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
The WebMD content, which should be available by the end of 2018, will be adapted to focus on diseases with higher prevalence in China, such as lung cancer, according to the report.
Tencent did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.
Tencent’s chairman Pony Ma has stressed the value of medical-related content sites. “People have been upset by uncertainties over the reliability of online medical information. We hope to have an authoritative and professional intellectual property product that’s recognised globally and of value to public welfare,” he said in a press event at China’s Two Sessions 2017, the annual meetings of the national legislature and the top political advisory body.
Nearly 60 per cent of Chinese people use WeChat as a major source of medical and health information, followed by television and the internet, according to a survey by state media China Youth Daily in 2017. Over half of the respondents said they had fallen victim to unprofessional health and medical advice in the past.