Fighting the pandemic and the infodemic: A year of COVID-19 Misinformation in Ghana

Exactly a year has gone by since the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced on 11 March 2020 that the COVID-19 outbreak had officially become a global pandemic. Unfortunately, Ghanaians had very little time to process this information and its implications on their way of life, as the next day, 12 March 2020, the country recorded her first two COVID-19 cases.

The anxiety, uncertainty and quest to unravel this mystery of a novel Coronavirus shifted the pandemic beyond a health crisis to an information crisis which the WHO describes as an infodemic. In view of this, the launch of Dubawa in Ghana on 25 February 2020 has been considered felicitous in its timely contribution to fighting the COVID-19 infodemic that besieged the world jointly with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ghana’s fight against the pandemic

The WHO advised on a number of global COVID-19 transmission and protective measures, many of which the government of Ghana, through periodic updates by the President, instituted. Among the various interventions implemented to help combat the spread of COVID-19, the country went under a partial lockdown to reduce physical movements while fumigating markets centres and institutions. Also, while the government increased the COVID-19 testing capacity to facilitate the case count and identify all infected people for treatment, there were also restrictions on mass gatherings and physical contacts, such as hand-shakes, a compulsory wearing of masks in public places directive, and the washing and sanitizing of hands protocol.

During this period, many scientific interventions were also being investigated as some Ghanaian institutions contributed in the capacities that they could. Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research and WACCBIP, for example, were among the frontline research centres studying the mutability of the virus in the Ghanaian context while a number of local manufacturers produced hand sanitizers and face masks, face shields and protective gowns to help mitigate the spread of the virus.

By the end of 2020, there was news of international vaccines that had passed approval from the WHO. Consequently, in February 2021, Ghana received the first consignment of vaccines from the COVAX facility, to facilitate the government’s nation-wide vaccination agenda which started on March 2, 2021 and is currently on-going.

Dubawa’s fight against the infodemic

While governments, scientists and health workers were (and still are) diversely fighting the spread of the virus, fact-checkers have also since the outbreak of the pandemic waded in to fight the spread of misinformation and disinformation to control its effect on the public. By reviewing scientific research, consulting health experts, and using the (non) validation of the WHO and CDC on emerging topics, Dubawa investigated several COVID-19 related claims including conspiracy theories, purported preventive measures, purported cures, the virus’ transmissibility through temperature, second-hand clothing, public transport, sewage systems, and asymptomatic COVID-19 patients, the recovery status of COVID-19 patients, political allegations on the former president and sitting president, and a host of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation – most of which were found to be falsehood stemming from people’s anxiety about the novelty of the virus, their uncertainty about cures, treatment and vaccines, or their sheer mischief to deceive others.

Furthermore, collectively, Dubawa and the government of Ghana, cautioned on the dangers of COVID-19 misinformation, as Dubawa provided Ghanaians with verified COVID-19 information as well as basic tips on fact-checking via the Ministry of Information’s press briefing platform. This platform enabled Dubawa to reach a wider Ghanaian audience on both online media and mainstream media including airing of findings on national television.

Retrospectively, as Ghana joins the world to reflect on the eventfulness of the COVID-19 year from the onset of the pandemic till date, concerns are also growing on the emerging implications the present global vaccination agenda brings in relation to the introduction of a vaccine passport. This is a concern which not only anti-vaccine travellers would have to deal with but that fact-checkers too would need to contend with, as new misinformation on the subject occur.

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After the indication from the owner of the page IsimaOdeh to Dubawa that the claims were based on basic google research, Dubawa fact-checked the claims and found some to be true and others false. Click here for the full fact-check

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False: NaCCA has not approved Golden Publication’s, English for Basic 4, for distribution or use

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