WHO warns against 'infodemic', says fake news threatens COVID-19 vaccine distribution

In early February, the World Health Organization (WHO) had warned the world about “infodemic”, a wave of fake news and misinformation spreading online about the newly discovered coronavirus. Nearly, 10 months after, the UN health agency reiterated its warning stressing that "infodemic" could jeopardize the roll of COVID-19 vaccines and immunization programmes.

In a statement, WHO asserted that while COVID-19 was the first pandemic wherein online platforms were being used to safeguard people, it was also the only one wherein they could jeopardize immunization process. Urging the global authorities, to contend people’s scepticism over vaccines, they asserted that the internet was used to spread “infodemic”. As per WHO, infodemic was an overabundance of information, both online and offline, including "deliberate attempts to disseminate wrong information".

"The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is the first pandemic in history in which technology and social media are being used on a massive scale to keep people safe, informed, productive and connected. At the same time, the technology we rely on to keep connected and informed is enabling and amplifying an infodemic that continues to undermine the global response and jeopardizes measures to control the pandemic," WHO said in a statement. 

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'Europe reported highest cases last week'

This comes as World Health Organization (WHO) revealed that Europe has remained the largest global contributor to the new COVID-19 cases and death in the past week. In a weekly report, the UN health agency stressed that the European region accounted for over 44 per cent of new global cases and 49 per cent of new COVID-19 deaths in the past week. Europe as per WHO comprises of 53 nations, of which Russia (transcontinental) and Turkey are the largest by population. 

The continent has reported 16,306,568 cases till now, despite major countries including UK, France imposing stricter measure to curb the spread of infection. According to the latest tally by John Hopkins University, a total of 372,031 people have died in Europe till now. Adding to that, the WHO report revealed that as many as 1.77 million cases and 32,684 fatalities out of the total were reported just last week.

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