SPOTLIGHT
Outsmart the virus
NALAKA GUNAWARDENE
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There is a fine line between educating and frightening the public and that’s why good communications is crucial to combat problems like the recent swine flu.
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How fast can we mobilise 24/7 media outlets and telecom networks to inspire preventive and curative action?
If only pigs could fly! That must have crossed the minds of more than a few health communicators in recent days, as they watched growing signs of the emerging swine flu pandemic.
On April 29, the World Health Organisation (WHO) cautioned about the global spread of influenza A (H1N1) and raised its alert level to Phase five: the next-to-highest level in the worldwide warning system. The UN agency also offered advice on how to prevent it from further spreading.
For some time, thousands of professionals involved in health education or risk communication have been gearing for an outbreak of bird flu. Instead of birds flying around spreading influenza, we now find pigs have been quietly mutating and multiplying viruses.
Familiar dilemma
Not only health communicators, but journalists too have had to quickly adjust to cover this long-awaited story, now breaking from an unexpected source. A crisis like this is too good to miss! Public health officials now face the crisis managers’ familiar dilemma with the media. They certainly need the wide reach and quick access of the myriad media outlets to inform, update and, where necessary, reassure the worried public. But they also realise the fine line between educating people and frightening them.
What happens when some media outlets sensationalise or speculate for a cheap thrill? No one can insure against this but it’s a risk that most crisis managers consider worth taking. As the very term suggests, ‘media’ is a plural; not everyone follows the same script. And although the unfolding reality is scary enough, today’s 24/7 saturation coverage demands new twists and turns at regular intervals. Even a virulent virus cannot mutate fast enough, it seems, for some news-gatherers and their gate-keepers.
This debate is not new. In recent years, there has been much discussion about the role of information and communication before, during and after a disaster or humanitarian crisis. These reflections were inspired, in part, by the Indian Ocean Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the Kashmir earthquake, all of which happened within a few months in 2004-2005.
There are no easy answers, but it’s important to keep asking the right questions.
Flu shots, quarantine measures and hospital care alone cannot counter the current flu outbreak. While medical doctors and researchers spearhead the public health response, we need the mass media and other communicators to mount the public awareness response. Ideally, they should reinforce each other.
For the first time in history, we now have the technological means to quickly reach out to most of humanity. More than four billion mobile phones are in use, a majority of them in the developing world.
Nearly a quarter of the world population (over 1.5 billion people) have access to the web, even if at varying levels of bandwidth. Thousands of radio and TV channels saturate the airwaves — these still are the primary source of news and information for billions.
Can these information and communication technologies (ICTs) help disseminate the right kind of flu awareness? How fast can we mobilise 24/7 media outlets and telecom networks to inspire preventive and curative action? What can the blogging, texting and twittering new media activists do in such efforts?
The delivery channels exist. Authentic information and analysis are constantly coming out of trusted sources like the WHO and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US. What we need is clarity and simplicity of messages, credible messengers and sustained delivery.
Lessons from SARS
However, it would be a mistake to rely on gadgets alone. Success depends much more on cultural, political and institutional factors. For years, Asia has been leading the world in the diffusion of modern ICTs including mobile phones and internet. Yet the Indian Ocean tsunami, which arrived in most locations without any public warning, showed up serious gaps in existing hazard warning systems.
Perhaps more relevant lessons come from how affected Asian countries dealt with the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003. After a bumpy start, the media teamed up with governments and experts in an effective battle against the epidemic. Radio and television, in particular, became educator, entertainer and, in some countries, even nanny.
When SARS forced a prolonged closure of schools, universities and public offices, China’s television broadcasters started beaming entertainment and educational programming round the clock. That encouraged people to stay inside their homes, thus minimising the spread of the virus.
Singapore blazed new trails. As Dr. Stewart Auyash, an Associate Professor in Health Promotion and Physical Education at Ithaca College in New York, has noted: “Of the countries affected, the actions of Singapore’s government stand out as an example of how to deal not only with the biological elements of the disease but with the methods, style, tone, timing and breadth of its communicated messages.”
Dr. Auyash, who was living in Singapore during the crisis, later wrote a paper titled “Communications as a Treatment for SARS in Singapore”. It traced how Singapore’s SARS containment policy assigned a major role for news media institutions, who promoted ‘positive participation’ by all citizens to stall or disrupt virus transmission. Citizens who followed the WHO’s preventive guidelines were hailed as community heroes. Those violating quarantine were named and shamed. Top government officials, including cabinet ministers, were shown submitting to the same mandatory preventive procedures as everyone else.
Key plank
Maintaining public trust formed another key plank of success. When officials knew the answer to a scary question about SARS, they gave it quickly and completely. When they didn’t, they sought time to search for it. There were no denials, doublespeak or rhetoric. That contrasted with how other affected countries — including China and Canada — initially responded.
Whether it is SARS, HIV or tsunami, many Asian governments have suffered from a credibility gap in managing information about emergencies. For example, the initially slow and guarded reporting on SARS allowed the virus to spread in China, with devastating results. We cannot afford to repeat these mistakes with the latest pandemic.
Nearly a century ago, British author H.G. Wells talked about human history being a race between education and catastrophe. In the coming weeks, we will find out if humanity has what it takes to outrun and outsmart a stubborn virus.
Science writer Nalaka Gunawardene co-edited
Communicating Disasters: An Asia Pacific Handbook (2007).
He blogs on media, society and development at http://movingimages.wordpress.com/
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