By Michael Gwarisa in Kadoma
In a bid to capacitate health communicators from the government, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), local authorities and health media, the Organisation for Public Health Interventions and Development (OPHID), is holding a three-day Infodemic Management capacity-building workshop.
The infodemic management workshop is happening in Kadoma in collaboration with Ministry of Health and Child Care (MoHCC) and project partner organisations, JFKapnek, and ZNNP+ – with technical support from USAID. An infodemic by definition is an excessive amount of information about a problem that is typically unreliable, spreads rapidly, and makes a solution more difficult to achieve.
In Zimbabwe, efforts to contain previous outbreaks such as COVID-19, Cholera, Measles, Polio and other diseases have been hampered by infodemic induced misinformation, rumors and disinformation.
Speaking on the sidelines of the workshop, Dr Tawanda Chimberengwa, the OPHID Technical Director said it was crucial to build strong risk communication systems and strategies to effectively communicate public health interventions.
You might have noted that whenever these outbreaks come through, there is panic and misinformation or what we call disinformation. It then leads to what is known as the infodemic. It’s just an information outbreak and most of the information is generally not correct. We then need the health authorities and everyone else who is in the circle of information to be well advised” said Dr Chimberengwa.
He added that there is a need to give communities correct information about diseases in order to avoid panic and the infodemic build-up.
Priscilla Mangwiro, the World Health Organisation Zimbabwe (WHO Zimbabwe) Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) Officer said health risk communication needs to be proactive.
“I can give the Mpox for example, one might ask, when is the right time to communicate with communities about the Mpox. Should we wait to report cases first or we start informing communities beforehand? We don’t have to wait till we get or report a case of the disease to start communicating with the communities. We need to communicate earlier so that we empower them with the right information before misinformation, rumors or disinformation start spreading,” said Mangwiro.
She added that having the communities ready is part of community protection. She said what people hear first is what usually sticks, hence the need for an effective and hands-on communication strategy.
According to studies on the infodemic and COVID-19, there was an unprecedented increase in information overload during the pandemic due to the pervasiveness of social media.
Mr Norman Dzirambi, the Health Promotion Manager-EPI in the Ministry of Health and Child Care said the COVID-19 period in Zimbabwe had high volumes of misinformation.
“Like all the other activities, COVID-19 vaccination in Zimbabwe took place in the same environment where the infodemics were taking place. The issues of misinformation, disinformation and all that cocktail was there. Before we even introduced a vaccine, misinformation had already started to circulate while the vaccines were still under manufacturing,” said Mr Dzirambi
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF are supporting establishment of a national Infodemic management strategy and toolkit for Zimbabwe.
