A recent study that examined the impact of information sources on Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy in sub-Saharan Africa discovered a strong link between people’s use of various media sources and vaccination resistance.

In 2020, when the pandemic’s impact in Africa was still underestimated, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that nearly 6000 people were hospitalized worldwide as a result of misinformation about coronavirus.

By then, the organization was working to combat false coronavirus information on social media platforms through the Africa Infodemic Response Alliance.,

According to the study, the prevalence of Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy in the region was 73 percent among social media users, 72 percent among TV viewers, and 42 percent among newspaper readers.

The study was conducted by African researchers from Western Sydney University in Australia; Cape Town and Kwazulu-Natal universities in South Africa and Jos, Benin, and Calabar universities in Nigeria.

It was the first of its kind to demonstrate the impact of information sources on vaccine uptake in sub-Saharan Africa.

It involved 2572 respondents and found that resistance to the Covid-19 vaccines was most common (87 percent) among social media and least common (37 percent) among newspaper readers.

Potential negative effects

Vaccination resistance was also documented in individuals, especially females, who got information about the vaccine from friends and relatives.

In many ways, the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa was accompanied by unprecedented and recurring waves of misinformation and disinformation.

This raised serious concerns about safety and potential negative effects, as well as what scientists called an Infodemic, or too much information, including false or misleading information in physical and digital environments.

https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-022-14972-2