Kano State Government has urged information and health education officers in the State to imbibe the culture of tackling misinformation, through adherence to ethics and rules guiding the profession.
The commissioner of Health, Abubakar Labaran Yusuf made the call at a training organised by, Breakthrough Action Nigeria BA-N with support from the USAID.
According to him, information officers at different cadres have to be mindful of the ethics and way of disseminating news to whatever medium they want to use.
Dr Abubakar explained that the essence is to remind them of the way to carry the information from the grassroots up to the level of the Governor.
“Every news has two sides. Always cross-check the two sides before releasing any story.”
In his remarks, the state team lead BA-N Kano Ahmed Mu’az pointed out that the objectives of the two-day training was to educate zonal information and health education officers on how to tackle misinformation at the grassroot level.
He noted that the state has witnessed rumours and fake news at the community level regarding outbreaks which poses as a setback to interventions.
Ahmed described information officers as critical stakeholders that have been left behind, saying that the government needs to take necessary measures to build the capacity of all relevant stakeholders to achieve the desired objectives.
“Two months ago there was a damaging rumour that there was an outbreak of a strange disease,that is why we decided to train information and health education officers to identify and manage misinformation ”
The two-day training on misinformation was marked by paper presentations on misinformation, debunking expanding vaccine immunology to communities and communication about vaccines.
Some of the participants who spoke to Radio Nigeria, Abdullahi Durumin Iya, Mukhtar Yahaya Shehu and Longton Yakubu described the workshop as apt.
They pointed out that it has shaped their perspectives about the difference between misinformation, disinformation, rumour and fake news.
Radio Nigeria reports that the event tagged “training on dealing with misinformation” was aimed at building the capacity of the officers to discharge their duties effectively especially as it relates to health issues in their respective communities.
KHADIJAH ALIYU
