KVH Industries offering Ebola safety video free to mariners

MIDDLETOWN – KVH Industries is responding to the Ebola threat by offering Videotel’s 15-minute video about Ebola safety free to all mariners worldwide.
The company issued a press release about the “Ebola – Staying Safe” video, saying it wants to increase awareness of prevention measures to keep seafarers safe.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, Ebola is a rare and deadly disease, and the 2014 Ebola epidemic is the largest in history, affecting multiple countries in West Africa.
“The World Health Organization has declared the current outbreak a public health emergency, and it is critically important that anyone working in the global maritime industry understand the steps they can take to prevent the further spread of the disease,” the press release states.

KVH created a website, www.kvh.com/EbolaSafety, for all mariners to download the free video and an accompanying workbook. KVH also made the video program available to its IP-MobileCast customers on vessels across the globe, who will automatically receive the video for immediate viewing onboard.

“The Ebola epidemic is a crisis of worldwide proportions and one where commercial ships and seafarers are at risk given the global nature of their jobs,” Martin Kits van Heyningen, KVH CEO, said in a statement. “Distributing the free video by digital means enables us to get the information to all mariners quickly, especially seafarers who may be in or near a port in the affected region, where it is unsafe to go ashore.”

The video features footage from West Africa and was produced in the last eight weeks to ensure the most up-to-date information; it also explains what Ebola is, what its symptoms are and how it spreads. It outlines the ways in which crew members can protect themselves.

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“The Ebola training film covers matters of life and death, much like many of our other programs in our 900-course training library,” Videotel’s Nigel Cleave said in prepared remarks. “It has to be accurate, engaging and well-designed from a didactic point of view so that mariners of all cultures and backgrounds understand it. Our ship owner and ship manager clients are facing Ebola-related decisions every day as their ships approach and leave affected ports and at Videotel our first instinct is to support them.”

KVH’s initiative to distribute the video to seafarers around the globe is company-wide: Videotel is providing the video free as part of the regular updates for its training program subscribers on more than 11,000 vessels; KVH Media Group, a provider of commercially licensed news, music, TV and movie entertainment content for the maritime industry, is directing its customers to the download site; and Crewtoo, KVH’s online seafarer network, is informing its 100,000+ seafarer members via social media.

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