Misinformation during pandemic

Rumors, stigma and conspiracy theories are being circulated in 25 different languages across at least 87 countries during the Covid-19. Misinformation may even lead to death of people. Currently, some people spread misinformation while talking about origin, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the disease - all not with ill intentions but may result in damage to public health.

Researchers defined a rumour as any unverified information that can be found to be true, fabricated, or entirely false after verification. Stigma relates to discrimination of a group and conspiracy theory is defined as beliefs about an individual or group of people out to reach malicious goals. A US report says about 5,800 people were admitted to hospital as a result of false information on the social media. Some allegedly died from drinking methanol or alcohol-based cleaning products. Many of the victims had followed ill advices.

It is the responsibility of international agencies, governments and social media platforms to fight what is called infodemic. Tech companies are criticised for their slow response. Meanwhile, there is every likelihood that we would see various campaigns for and against the Covid-19 vaccine as nations are advancing towards development of more than one vaccines. We need to be more careful while dealing with misinformation about the virus, vaccine and treatment of the disease.

Ashikujaman Syed

Research assistant

Lanzhou University, China

syedashikujaman@yahoo.com