A panel discussion, with experts from the medical fraternity as well as Information Technology experts, was organized on the topic “The Internet, Social Media and the Nipah Virus Outbreak”, on 27 May 2019. The panel discussion was organized during the Annual General Meeting of the Internet Society, Trivandrum Chapter, held at Hotel Apollo Dimora, on Sunday evening.
Informational content has become an important part of medicine and is especially important in the case of a highly infectious disease such as that caused by the Nipah-virus. During a crisis like the present outbreak, all stakeholders need quick access to information, be it the medical community, the government, media or the general population. The Internet is an extremely important part of the information infrastructure, providing the sources as well as the communication channel for information for all these stakeholders.
In the present case, the Government of Kerala was able to provide a co-ordinated response to the outbreak. On the information needs of the common people, while there was an initial delay, the GoK did provide information through social media & the Web and provided continuous updates.
At the same time, there were several cases of misinformation delivered through social media, including Youtube and WhatsApp. Some of these reflected genuine questions from people, while others were opinions of a few people who seized the opportunity provided by the outbreak to impose their ideas or unfounded opinions. In some cases, the Government acted quickly to squelch these, but in many others, the difficulty in ascertaining sources made it difficult for any action to be taken.
The panel pointed towards the immediate need for authentic sources of information, made available in multiple languages–the languages of the local population and adjoining areas such as Malayalam, Kannada and Tamil, as well as the languages of the migrant workers in the region, including Hindi, Assamese, Bengali and Oriya–and delivered through multiple sources, including the Internet, Social Media, as well as print and visual media. The panel also felt that such authentic information should be pushed actively so as to withstand the onslaught of misinformation.
The panel also considered Government to be the primary source of authentic information, with community sources–such as the community of medical practitioners, media practitioners, the Wikimedia community–coming in as a second reliable source. It was also felt that there should be some forum for citizens to pose questions and obtain unambiguous responses (such as what precautions to take in public spaces such as buses, theatres or on the street, or if the virus would be destroyed upon cooking).
The panel discussion was very interactive, with panellists as well as participants actively raising questions and providing comments. The discussion took place in the context of the recent Nipah virus outbreak that caused the deaths of 18 people (including a nurse) in North Kerala. The outbreak has since been brought under control.
[List of speakers & moderator, and their affiliations]
- Dr Kavitha Raja, Medical Superintendent & HOD (Microbiology) SCTIMST, TVM
- Dr Jayan Chandrasekharan (Additional Professor of Surgery and Joint Director, eHealth Kerala Project)
- Satish Babu, Immediate Past Chair, ISOC-TRV & President, InApp
- Viswanathan Prabhakaran – Wikipedia community
- Moderator – R. Srinivasan, Chair, ISOC-TRV
