Dear colleagues,
I am pleased to share with you this case study that I did with the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research for WHO EMRO regional office [*see note below]. I am copying a paragraph from the case study that is relevant to the amazing work that HIFA does:
"Further, stakeholders associated low levels of trust in the government with public anxiety about the credibility of information provided by the authorities and, in turn, the emergence of other sources of information that the community felt were more credible. Indeed, prior to and during the pandemic, myths and misinformation spread (36). For example, a prominent Shiite religious leader announced that COVID-19 does not affect true believers, therefore people should continue their worship as normal (73). Such proclamations encouraged thousands of people to conduct a pilgrimage to holy Shiite sites, in defiance of government curfews and official fatwas (74, 75). Similarly, some politicians promoted conspiracy theories about the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (76). This prompted some stakeholders to suggest the censoring of misinformation and to recommend that departments be established within the MoH that specialize in health information and awareness"
I would be grateful for any input if you have time to read it.
BW
Goran
*Dr. Goran Zangana *
MBChB, MPH, MRCP(UK), MRCPE, PhD
Board Member, Health Systems Global
Iraq country represenative, HIFA
Phone: 00447584867623 @GoranAbudlla
HIFA profile: Goran Zangana is a medical doctor and Associate Research Fellow with the Middle East Research Institute, Iraq. He is a HIFA country representative for Iraq and is currently based in the UK. He is the current holder of Country Representative of the Year 2021. https://www.hifa.org/support/members/goran goran.zangana AT meri-k.org
[*Note from HIFA moderator (NPW): Thank you Goran. The original message had the case study attached but HIFA does not carry attachments. The case study can be downloaded here: https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/366290 ]
