Medical experts raise concerns over disinformation and misinformation that may cause people to take precautions lightly or undertake dangerous experiments, stress on need for single agency to educate citizens
Photo for representational purpose. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi
Amid the Covid-19 pandemic and its emerging variants, health experts have raised concerns about misinformation on social networking sites adding to the confusion and fear. It has been stressed that citizens get their doubts cleared from experts instead of relying on social media.
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Dr Subhash Hira, professor of Global Health, University of Washington-Seattle and former official at the World Bank-DC, said, “Misinformation and disinformation can deceive audiences but disinformation is intentional and maliciously deceptive. The broad areas of misinformation are the Wuhan origin of Covid-19, figures of patients and deaths, scientific publications and repurposed medicines, vaccines and their trxial results, global economies and recession, climate change effects, etc.”
“In March 2020, the ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) and some foreign institutions blocked the use of masks. But six to eight weeks later, the ICMR reversed its recommendation without citing any local effectiveness studies. In future, if any evidence emerges that ICMR scientists maliciously and intentionally made India believe that wearing masks by the general public was not useful, it will be labelled as ‘disinformation’. But as per the principles of barrier creation against infectious diseases, use of masks, physical distancing, and border/travel lockdown are mandatory first steps. Hence, scientists in ICMR damaged public health, knowingly — it can be labelled as an act of disinformation. The consequences of the first step of disinformation can be seen in the multi-sectoral damages in India as compared to Taiwan and Cambodia,” Dr Hira said.
Physicians are best guides
Dr Ketan Vagholkar, professor of Surgery, DY Patil Medical College, said, “Information on Covid has often been misleading. International health agencies made confusing statements while health authorities in each country made statements based on their experiences and outcomes. The best guides were physicians actively treating Covid patients. Their advice based on experiences was invaluable and the safest. It is advisable that citizens clear their doubts from these experts rather than from the internet.”
Set-up govt agency
Dr Santosh Bansode, head of the department, Emergency Medicine, Wockhardt Hospitals, Mumbai Central, said, “Identifying correct information amid the pandemic is a big challenge. Social media content on the treatment of Covid and traditional remedies often confuse people. With time, there have also been several changes in the medicines used to treat Covid. At the start of the pandemic, HCQ (Hydroxychloroquine) was said to be a good option, then came remdesivir. Doctors are constantly trying to figure out which medicines really work on Covid-19. We rely on our experiences.”
Dr Bansode added, “With the various claims of Covid cures, people may start experimenting with various medicines and remedies, based on disinformation. To overcome this confusion, a single government agency should verify and publish information and guidelines. People should be made aware of the agency and how to access its information. This will make our work easy, patients will get the ideal treatment and uniform protocols can be followed all over India,” said Dr Bansode.
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