Community responses to corona virus disease (COVID-19) in Africa in the face of “Infodemic”: A scoping review
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Date
2024
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Publisher
Elsevier
Abstract
Globally, Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) has significantly affected communities in various
aspects. The World Health Organization proposed different measures to prevent the pandemic.
However, these measures in some instances have not effectively minimized the impacts of COVID-
19, due to innumerable factors, inter alia, considerable “infodemic” related to myths, misinformation,
and misconceptions. Knowledge of the “infodemic” on COVID -19 can lead to effective
interventions to rid societies of COVID-19, hence reduction of COVID-19-related risks and outcomes.
This article explores the “COVID-19 infodemic” that affected community responses to
COVID-19 in Africa. The study employed a scoping review approach involving peer-reviewed
articles from numerous search engines and databases. The keywords involved in the search
query were: “COVID-19 infodemic, COVID-19 false news, COVID-19 in Africa, ‘knowledge of
COVID-19, ‘myths, misinformation, and misconceptions on COVID-19, ‘history of COVID-19’,
‘community responses to COVID-19 in Africa”. Findings show that 5G technology transferred
coronavirus, high temperature and alcohol can kill coronavirus, blacks are immune to COVID-19,
COVID-19 vaccine development has been rushed hence not very effective and safe and also causes
infertility. Diverse community responses have been registered which in some ways frustrated
efforts in combating the pandemic. Therefore, the “infodemic” consisting of myths, misconceptions,
and misinformation have been resulting from the history of COVID-19 which first
affected white people more than blacks. Also, low knowledge of how the virus is transmitted and
affect human being; and the notion that COVID-19 affects richer than poor people, hence since
white people are richer than black people then they were the first to be affected by the pandemic.
Obviously in presence of such myths, misconceptions, and misinformation; community responses
in combating COVID-19 have not been very effective in Africa. For these interventions to be
effective, collective efforts involving various stakeholders to raise awareness of COVID-19 are
needed.
Description
Journal Article
Keywords
Community responses, COVID-19, Myths, Misinformation, Misconception, COVID-19 “infodemic”