WHO's newly launched platform aims to combat misinformation around COVID-19. John
Zarocostas reports from Geneva.
WHO is leading the effort to slow the spread of the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19)
outbreak. But a global epidemic of misinformation—spreading rapidly through social
media platforms and other outlets—poses a serious problem for public health. “We’re
not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic”, said WHO Director-General
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at the Munich Security Conference on Feb 15.
Immediately after COVID-19 was declared a Public Health Emergency of International
Concern, WHO's risk communication team launched a new information platform called
WHO Information Network for Epidemics (EPI-WIN), with the aim of using a series of
amplifiers to share tailored information with specific target groups.
Sylvie Briand, director of Infectious Hazards Management at WHO's Health Emergencies
Programme and architect of WHO's strategy to counter the infodemic risk, told The
Lancet, “We know that every outbreak will be accompanied by a kind of tsunami of information,
but also within this information you always have misinformation, rumours, etc. We
know that even in the Middle Ages there was this phenomenon”.
“But the difference now with social media is that this phenomenon is amplified, it
goes faster and further, like the viruses that travel with people and go faster and
further. So it is a new challenge, and the challenge is the [timing] because you need
to be faster if you want to fill the void…What is at stake during an outbreak is making
sure people will do the right thing to control the disease or to mitigate its impact.
So it is not only information to make sure people are informed; it is also making
sure people are informed to act appropriately.”
About 20 staff and some consultants are involved in WHO's communications teams globally,
at any given time. This includes social media personnel at each of WHO's six regional
offices, risk communications consultants, and WHO communications officers.
Aleksandra Kuzmanovic, social media manager with WHO's department of communications,
told The Lancet that “fighting infodemics and misinformation is a joint effort between
our technical risk communications [team] and colleagues who are working on the EPI-WIN
platform, where they communicate with different…professionals providing them with
advice and guidelines and also receiving information”.
Kuzmanovic said, “In my role, I am in touch with Facebook, Twitter, Tencent, Pinterest,
TikTok, and also my colleagues in the China office who are working closely with Chinese
social media platforms…So when we see some questions or rumours spreading, we write
it down, we go back to our risk communications colleagues and then they help us find
evidence-based answers”.
“Another thing we are doing with social media platforms, and that is something we
are putting our strongest efforts in, is to ensure no matter where people live….when
they’re on Facebook, Twitter, or Google, when they search for ‘coronavirus’ or ‘COVID-19’
or [a] related term, they have a box that…directs them to a reliable source: either
to [the] WHO website to their ministry of health or public health institute or centre
for disease control”, she said.
Google, Kuzmanovic noted, has created an SOS Alert on COVID-19 for the six official
UN languages, and is also expanding in some other languages. The idea is to make the
first information that the public receive be from the WHO website and the social media
accounts of WHO and Dr Tedros. WHO also uses social media for real-time updates.
WHO is also working closely with UNICEF and other international agencies that have
extensive experience in risk communications, such as the International Federation
of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
Carlos Navarro, head of Public Health Emergencies at UNICEF, the children's agency,
told The Lancet that while a lot of incorrect information is spreading through social
media, a lot is also coming from traditional mass media.
“Often, they pick the most extreme pictures they can find…There is overkill on the
use of [personal protective equipment] and that tends to be the photos that are published
everywhere, in all major newspapers and TV…that is, in fact, sending the wrong message”,
Navarro said.
David Heymann, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of
Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, told The Lancet that the traditional media has a key
role in providing evidence-based information to the general public, which will then
hopefully be picked up on social media.
He also observed that for both social and conventional media, it is important that
the public health community help the media to “better understand what they should
be looking for, because the media sometimes gets ahead of the evidence”.