with a vaccine now well on the way there
are increasing concerns that
misinformation
circulating online could turn some
people against being vaccinated
the world health organization says the
world's not only fighting the pandemic
but also an infedemic
where false information about vaccines
and covet in general continues to spread
widely
particularly online the bbc's global
health correspondent
tulip mazumba reports ever since this
pandemic started we have all been faced
with a barrage of information about
kovitt 19.
it can lead to confusion distrust
and in some cases protests against
proven public health advice
now with vaccines well on the way
there's a fresh push
to separate fact from fiction i spoke to
trainee solicitor oscar who's taking
part in vaccine trials at imperial
college london
and production designer nina who lives
with her 82 year old grandmother
about new covid vaccines making sense of
all of the different scientific opinion
and the results that are recently coming
out is incredibly difficult
yes i think it's quite convoluted at the
moment i think there are quite a lot of
opinions flying around
kind of you know over twitter over
instagram
i would like to be vaccinated because i
think it's one of the only ways
out of this situation i have quite mixed
feelings i
know i'm not sure how much i trust the
vaccine yet
because it's happened so quickly we feel
that many people
actually currently they are making a
decision not based on on the good
information but
based on on on some information they
have seen
on social media or elsewhere and they
believe it because they have not had
access to the right information at the
right time in the right format
so the who along with governments have
teamed up with big social media
companies
to come up with better ways of getting
accurate information to people
like this whatsapp feed which anyone can
sign up to
facebook has introduced notification
screens flagging false information
before people choose to share it but it
can still be shared
a number of studies looking at people's
attitudes towards a covid19 vaccine
are underway preliminary data from 17
countries suggest that people in
ethiopia india and saudi arabia feel the
most confident about taking one
with at least 85 saying they would be
immunized
there was more skepticism in countries
including germany
france the u.s and also in the drc where
fewer than 50 percent of people said
they
would take a vaccine the sciencey ones
have more of a negative impact than the
the ones that are questioning motives of
of people professor heidi larsen has
been studying people's attitudes to
vaccines
for more than two decades what we need
to focus on is building the resilience
and building filling that space you
can't just take away pieces of
misinformation one of the big anxieties
is safety
so we can talk about the fact that
safety process
are being followed carefully we're
shortcutting
other parts of that long uh development
process
scientists are taking to social media
themselves to try and get accurate
information
out there the battle against kovid can't
be won in hospitals and science labs
alone
part of this fight needs to happen
online
tulip mazumdar bbc news