Information dissemination is critical during disease outbreaks. Quality and accurate information reduces speculations and fears which are often detrimental to health and well-being. In the age of fake news and misinformation, authentic information plays a vital role in ensuring that people do not panic, under-react or over-react.
In the last two months, several conspiracy theories have arisen concerning coronavirus, its pattern of spread and cure. There have been insinuations that coronavirus kills only whites but not black people. This has proven to be untrue, with the high number of deaths of black people in some parts of the United States and even Africa.
A school of thought has also arisen prescribing the use of certain unscientifically proven drugs to the people across the world. Some have taken the drugs even when they were neither sick nor tested positive to the virus. Three people were reported to have been hospitalised for abusing chloroquine in Lagos around late March. A man was also reported to have died in the United States on March 23 for ingesting chloroquine phosphate. Moreover, some communities have advocated the use of lime and honey to cure the novel virus. While all these might have worked in some instances, they still pose dangers for being unscientific and untested.
This is where Nestor Minimyo Inimgba, an obstetrician and gynaecologist, comes in. Though Inimgba is a lecturer at University of Port Harcourt, he is more of an entrepreneur and health innovator. He set up a platform known as Infodemics to provide Nigerians with accurate and quality information about coronavirus, Lassa Fever and other deadly diseases. Infodemics employs existing social hierarchies in a community to effectively communicate health risks. It sends out questionnaires to students, teachers and communities to determine their level of understanding of deadly diseases such as Ebola, Lassa Fever and coronavirus, also known as Covid-19. Through its algorithms, information is sent to appropriate authorities to educate them on how communities understand or would respond to disease outbreaks.
“Our algorithm allows us disseminate information to the most vulnerable people using social circles. For instance, school pupils via their principal, community indigenes via their traditional heads,” Inimgba said on his Infodemics blog recently.
According to the entrepreneur, Infodemics harnesses tech prowess to disseminate real time information to hard-to-reach areas during disease outbreaks.
It also manages volunteers, coordinate with communities with authentic feedback, according to information on its website.
It has applications such as Infodemics Blog, Covid-19 Tracker and Check In. On March 17, Ventures Platform, a Nigerian-based innovation hub, announced its decision to provide workspace, mentorship and $1,000 to seven start-ups working to reduce the spread of coronavirus. Infodemics was one those selected for the project.
The seven were enrolled on a five-day bootcamp, targeted at helping them to improve their outcomes. The selected founders and startups worked with a select group of stakeholders to finalise solutions and launch.
Each startup was given access to three mentors with rich experience in business and health.
Infodemics, in partnership with African Achievers Awards, recently hosted a virtual pan-African COVID 19 conference, which it described as ‘a huge success.’
“Having to hear directly from directors at the World Health Organisation and policy makers around Africa was a step forward,” Infodemics posted on its Twitter handle.
Inimgba won a health contest in 2018 and has continued to innovate. Many Africans may have forgotten Ebola virus which experts say is more dangerous than coronavirus in terms of mortality. But Infodemics still passes information across to African communities to educate them on what to do and what not to. One of the impressions being corrected by the organisation is that salt water cannot be used to cure Ebola. Just like there have been several unscientific postulations around Covid-19 cure, they have also been speculations around the use of salt water or certain types of water to cure the virus. But Infodemics debunks this on a daily basis to enable people have access to accurate information.
