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As Zimbabwe and other African countries grapple with increasing public health threats, experts have flagged the critical role of dissemination of accurate information to ensure effective infodemic management.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines an infodemic as an excessive amount of information, including false or misleading content, circulating during emergencies such as disease outbreaks.
Recognising the urgency and potential consequences of an infodemic, the Organisation for Public Health Interventions and Development (OPHID) with support from USAID has collaborated with the Ministry of Health and Child Care to host a three-day workshop aimed at educating health communication experts on the significance of managing infodemic effectively.
The workshop aims to equip participants with the skills to identify and counter misinformation and disinformation effectively, ensuring the timely dissemination of accurate information. Speaking on the sidelines of the workshop yesterday, OPHID technical director, Dr Tawanda Chimberengwa said information communication and education was a key part of the response to public health emergencies such as the Covid-19 pandemic.
“You may appreciate that whenever these outbreaks come through, there is a lot of panic and misinformation and disinformation. It then leads to what we call the infodemic; this is just an information outbreak and most of the information generally is not correct. So we need the health authorities or everyone else who is in the circle of information to be well advised. As we are going into new outbreaks, it is important for us to make sure that we give our communities the correct information,” he said.
He said the availability of correct information would remove confusion and panic, thus avoiding interference with interventions. At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world was faced with a lot of misinformation and disinformation, which resulted in vaccine hesitancy. In Zimbabwe, other factors such as religious and cultural beliefs were also responsible for the misinformation around vaccines. Over the last few years, the country has faced other public health emergencies with measles, polio and the outbreak of cholera which ended recently.
WHO risk communication and community engagement officer Ms Priscilla Mangwiro said infodemics during a disease outbreak had the potential to become more dangerous than the disease itself, hence the need to effectively manage it.
“This can lead to confusion and ultimately mistrust in Governments and public health. Unverified information can cause harm by sowing confusion and drowning out accurate health information, it can change behaviour and shape attitudes to vaccines. It will affect the uptake of prevention and protection measures.
“And endemics are not only about circulating misinformation or disinformation, it is also about the overload of information, outdated information, and information gaps. So when we do our interventions, we need to cater for the different target audience. Let’s be proactive, whether it is Mpox, hypertension, mental health or any other disease,” she said.
Currently, the region is faced with a growing outbreak of mpox which has already claimed more than 700 lives and affected at least 18 000 people in Africa alone. Zimbabwe has not yet reported a case of the viral infection, but the country is now on high alert as neighbouring countries like South Africa have confirmed cases.
“Social media groups are awash with messages on Mpox, some with correct information, some with outdated information because mpox is evolving. So we don’t have to wait till we have a case, we have to start communicating with the communities so that we don’t get misinformation here. We have to start with the correct information because what people hear first will stick,” said Ms Mangwiro.
Ministry of Health and Child Care Health Promotion manager-EPI, Mr Norman Dzirambi said the national COVID-19 vaccination took place in an environment where there was an infodemic and systems had been put in place and were available to address other emerging issues.”Covid 19 is not yet eradicated so systems are still in place for surveillance and communication. Platforms that were used then just switched from Covid-19 to polio, to cholera and they are still existing. They are still discussing and responding to some of those issues. I am sure they have now started talking about Mpox as we speak. There is a scope in continuity of communication,” he said.
Online Reporter