write a paragraph on "donot lose hope in tough times" in context of corona virus and cyclonic storm Amphan.
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1The Australian Centre for Public and Population Health Research [ACPPHR], Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW, Australia
2Department of Population and Health, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana
3Neurocognition and Action-Biomechanics-Research Group, Faculty of Psychology and Sport Sciences, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
4Department of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana
Misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic is gradually gaining much popularity and amplifying the threat facing humanity about the continuous spread of the virus regardless of one's location. Although some of the influx of these falsehoods may be harmless, others might pose a serious threat by misleading the general population to depend on unjustified and/unsubstantiated claims for protection and show preference for them against scientifically proven guidelines. This paper provides a clear understanding on some COVID-19 misinformation, the inherent implications this poses to public health in Africa and highlights the potential strategies to curb this trend.
Introduction
Africa is one of the continents to be recently affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. From the very onset of the pandemic, there were some misconceptions that due to perhaps the geographical conditions (e.g., warm temperatures) of the continent, the causative organisms of the virus would not thrive. Another misleading information was that Africans may have strong immune systems to battle the virus (Ryder, 2020). However, the sudden rise of the pandemic across the continent debunks these earlier erroneous impressions. Since the first case of COVID-19 was noted on the 14th February, 2020 in Egypt, recent statistics reveal that the worst affected countries are South Africa (1,655 confirmed cases, 11 deaths); Algeria (1,432 confirmed cases, 173 deaths); Egypt (1,173 confirmed cases, 78 deaths); Morocco (1,120 confirmed cases, 80 deaths); Cameroon (658 confirmed cases, 9 deaths); Tunisia (574 confirmed cases, 22 deaths); Burkina Faso (345 confirmed cases, 17 deaths), Cote D'Ivoire (261confirmed cases, 3 deaths); Mauritius (244 confirmed cases, 7 deaths); Nigeria (232 confirmed cases, 5 deaths); Senegal (226 confirmed cases, 2 deaths), and Ghana (214 confirmed cases, 5 deaths) as at 18.00 GMT on Monday, April 6, 2020 (Coronavirus live tracker, 2020). These recent developments have raised serious public health concerns among the local populace. Of particular concern is the potential spread of the disease through multitude of false, misleading and/or unsubstantiated COVID-19 news contents to the general public termed as “misinformation.” Misinformation can be defined as “any claim of fact that is currently false due to lack of scientific evidence” (Chou et al., 2018).
Due to the wave of fear, worry, and panic about local transmissions and multiple infections among the populace, several people are currently spreading a wide range of diverse misinformation through the internet, opinion leaders, political figures, and social commentators through unsubstantiated malicious information or fake news. The widespread misguided COVID-19 related misinformation can spread the disease quickly and can cause xenophobia on the continent (Mejova and Kalimeri, 2020; Shimizu, 2020; Thomas, 2020). The fear, worry, stigma, and other falsehoods about COVID-19 might lead to adverse impacts on disease control since prior SARS and Ebola outbreaks are clear examples (Maunder et al., 2003; Person et al., 2004; Cheung, 2015). Therefore, understanding the various forms of misinformation about COVID-19 and the threat it poses to the general public could be essential for various governments, public health officials as well as the media to design effective information campaigns and other pragmatic interventions. Strategies to circumvent around sharing of fake and misleading COVID-19 information are highlighted in this mini review.