All posts by : Simon Orondo

Debunking misinformation in health reporting

By  Christine Ochogo I christawine@gmail.com

Information is power, as the saying goes. However correct and factual information in health reporting is what should be consumed in a bid to save lives.

It is therefore important to be cautious when handling information because as much as it is meant to enlighten people on a particular health subject matter, it that can also be used as a weapon for driving various agenda that is not for public good.

With the emergence of coronavirus that has caused Covid-19 pandemic, journalist have turned to health journalism to keep up pace in reporting its development since major stories being carried in the news media today is on COvid-19.

However, most journalist are not endowed with proper training on matters health and have been endowed with public health concepts but are forced to report on Covid-19.

This has created room for misinformation since people are coming up with their own views in regards to the novel coronavirus pandemic that has affected the globe.

In a write up published in forbes, dated August 09, 2020, a contributor mentioned that it is therefore necessary that journalist be taken through epidemiology training to be able to handle stories on covid-19 in a bid to fight misinformation.

By definition, epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution, patterns and determinants of health and diseases and other factors related to health.

Most often we journalist are bombarded with too much information that is not necessary yet what we are looking for is the missing facts that is not available at our disposal.

In dissemination of information there are three types of information disorder which include misinformation, disinformation and mal-information.

Misinformation has been described as false information shared with no intent to harm. It is usually spread unknowingly and it contains viral messages that are shared quickly without fact checking.

Disinformation on the other hand has been described as deliberate false information that is misleading and knowingly shared to cause harm.

Mal-information is when genuine information is shared to cause harm to a person, social group, organization or a country to a person, so, often by moving private information into the public sphere.

Journalist covering health should be fast in spotting and debunking health misinformation by questioning the content and not just consuming information at face value.

Take an example of a recent statement by a USA based doctor, Dr. Stella Immanuel , who come out to claim that  hydroxychloroquine, which is an anti-malaria drug, can cure Covid-19 yet there is no scientific approval to that effect.

Erick Mugendi, Communication Managing Director at PesaCheck, an organization that fights against misinformation, stressed that false information in health reporting can lead to death if mishandled or not debunked in time.

In his explanation during a media online café organized by Media for Environment Science Health and Agriculture (MESHA) he mentioned that fact checking helps in increasing the availability of factual information for under resourced health topics such as Neglected Tropical Diseases, Reproduction Health among others.

 “Debunking misinformation can be done by countering the false information with proper and factual content that can help save lives,” Mugendi stressed.

Sometimes people loose trust because of evolving rereign in information and therefore journalist should develop a tentative tone when doing reporting. This will keep the public on track and be well informed.

“Initially when covid-19 pandemic broke, the public was being told not to wear facemasks, however as the virus evolved, World Health Organization approved the usage of face mask saying it has the ability to prevent the spread of the virus,” Mugendi said.

The writer is a freelance journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya.

By Darrel Bosire I info@meshascience.org 

Africa could benefit from lower prices by participating in the ongoing COVID-19 vaccine development efforts, experts have said.

There could also be cost trade-offs for countries taking part in vaccine trials because they are co-investors or partners in the projects, says Dr Borna Nyaoke-Anoke, Manager, Clinical Trials at the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative/Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (DNDI/GARDP). Dr Nyaoke-Anoke said countries that opted out of vaccine trials will likely buy them at higher prices once they are developed.

“It does not make economic sense for pharmaceutical firms in the north that includes Europe and America, to test and develop a vaccine in their home countries at very high costs and then sell it here at a price similar to the one in their home countries. It is even harder to expect them to give discounted rates on the vaccines to African countries,” she said.

Dr Nyaoke-Anoke said the reasons pharmaceuticals prefer Africa for medicine and vaccine trials are purely scientific, and not racism. “Africa has the richest genetic variety and this makes it an ideal location for clinical trials involving vaccine and drug candidates.

That will result in more effective medicines and vaccines for people from the region and beyond,” she said. She was speaking at a recent virtual pre-conference hosted by the Media for Environment, Science, Health and Agriculture (MESHA), and attended by experts and science journalists from all over Africa.

Prof Kenneth Ngure, a lecturer at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), said Africa has scientific and moral reasons to participate in vaccine trials, so that when the vaccines are discovered the findings can also be generalizable to African populations.

Prof Ngure added that populations that participate in trials are usually the ones that are prioritized to receive the vaccines once they become available.

“We should avoid double speak. On the one hand we do not want to participate in vaccine trials and on the other we are demanding to get the vaccines,” he said.

“Remember most of the vaccines and drugs that we use in Africa today had the trials conducted in the west, it is only recently that Africa is getting more requests to conduct these studies because it has built its human, regulatory and infrastructural capacity.”

Dr Nyaoke-Anoke urged African countries to invest more in boosting research capacity in their labs as well as increasing the number of testing sites to attract interest from pharmaceutical firms developing vaccines and medications for various medical conditions.

She said not all medicines and vaccines developed in foreign countries were as effective for local populations, adding that the only way for African nations to overcome this was to take part in the research using local volunteers.

Data from the website www. clinicaltrials.org shows that there are 166 COVID-19 trials taking place in Africa, as compared to 710 in the United States alone, and 107 in Canada. South America has 162, China 60 and India 181.

Out of the 1,056 COVID-19 drug trials going on globally, DNDI indicates that Africa is the site for 56 trials. Uganda, Kenya and DRC are currently participating in trials for one drug each, as compared to Egypt with 36 trials, and South Africa with eight. Dr Nyaoke-Anoke rooted for more funding for research efforts into medication and vaccines on the continent.

“There is a real and urgent need for governments and other stakeholders in the continent to increase funding for research so that they can benefit from credible data from such efforts on home soil. By becoming partners in the research, it will put them in a good position to access drugs and vaccines developed specifically for their populations’ genetic makeup,” said the researcher and academic.

all are visited by tourists, so they are all potentially at risk. Apart from the more solitary orangutans, all species of great apes are highly sociable, living in close-knit social groups with physical interactions between them such as grooming and play occurring throughout large parts of every day. Transmission of any disease would Dr Nyaoke rooted for more funding for research efforts into medication and vaccines on the continent.  

“There is a real and urgent need for governments and other stakeholders in the continent to increase funding for research so that they can benefit from credible data from such efforts on home soil. By becoming partners in the research, it will put them in a good position to access drugs and vaccines developed specifically for their populations’ genetic makeup,” said the researcher and academic.

Responding to a question on why pharmaceuticals preferred Africa as a location for medicine and vaccine trials, Dr Nyaoke said science, and not racism, was the real reason for the choice.

“Africa has the richest genetic variety and this makes ideal location for clinical trials involving vaccine and drug candidates. Even though a few insensitive statements have created the impression in people’s minds that Africans are perhaps viewed as guinea pigs in some quarters, the main goal of the trials is to get comprehensive data from the wide genetic variations in the African populations. That will result in more effective medicines and vaccines for people from the region and beyond,” she said.

“Most trials are taking part in high-income countries. Very few trials are planned in Africa, South Africa, Central and South America, South and Southeast Asia.

Dr Nyaoke said many of the trials currently taking place are too small to be conclusive.

“COVID-19 trials need to be large, well designed and adequately powered to generate authoritative, concrete evidence,” said Dr Nyaoke.  

She lamented that “research to date has mainly been focused on advanced cases of the disease while COVID-19 cases in Africa have mainly been mild.”

Dr Nyaoke said the trials should look into better ways to care for patients in view of the worryingly low levels of ICU and hospital bed capacity on the continent.

“Limited hospital and ICU bed capacity and exposure of health workers require urgent investigation. Large, well-conducted clinical trials are urgently needed to support guidelines on prevention and clinical management in resource poor settings,” she said.

According to Dr Vincent Muturi-Kioi, a medical director at the International AIDS Vaccine (iavi), different people will respond differently to drugs and vaccines because of many factors including human genetics and environmental exposures.

For scientists to develop vaccines and other biomedical products that are optimized for African populations and are meant to address public health problems that may disproportionately affect people in Africa and other low-income regions of the world, it is important that the clinical trials provide data which accurately represents the way these products work in the target populations.