Journalists, particularly Health Reporters have been urged to move away from reporting numbers during disease outbreaks but rather, focus more on preventive media contents.
The call was made by the Social, Behavioral and Communication Change Officer (BCCO) of Breakthrough Action Nigeria (BA-N) Nura Bashir Faggo at a two-day meeting to build vaccine champions among Media professionals held in Bauchi.
Nura Faggo said that the Media needs to adopt solutions journalism to encourage community members on measures to mitigate health emergencies.
According to him, “Health Reporters and Producers need to report on measures communities can take to mitigate disease outbreaks such as cholera, diphtheria, mpox and Lassa fever since these outbreaks are preventable”.
He further said that participants should seek to employ key topics to intensify creating awareness in order to curb the occurrence of outbreaks.
The BCCO further noted that practising solution journalism would improve the social and behavioural change amongst the public by shifting from dependency on the government.
Speaking on findings and listing zero dose, lessons learned and recommendations, the Advocacy Capacity Strengthening Officer of BA-N Bauchi, Hadiza Jibrin said that Caregivers from Four local government areas of Alkaleri, Dambam, Ganjuwa and Katagum gave reasons for zero dose to include Adverse Events Following Immunization (AEFI), lack of spousal permission, and transport among others.
According to her, “the health workers are expected to pass key messages to parents on AEFI during ANC or immunization sessions but because they are overwhelmed.”
Hadiza Jibrin added, “From one of the findings; the husband said his child was healthy before immunization but at night he cried through and the next day when he visited the health facility they wrote drugs for him to go and buy, these are some of the issues”.
The Deputy State Epidemiologist, Bauchi State Primary Healthcare Board, Danladi Yakubu said that outbreaks were categorized into man-made and natural disasters.
He said that the State experiences frequent outbreaks of Diphtheria, Lassa Fever, Yellow fever, Cerebral meningitis, cholera and measles among others all year round.
Danladi Yakubu also said that the disease calendar shows that the various outbreaks range from dry to rainy season.
According to him, “The State disease calendar shows that from April to August the State experiences cholera, September to April is Lassa Fever, Meningitis is mostly in November to June while other outbreaks seen are that of measles in November to April.”
Also speaking, BA-N Risk Community and Community Engagement Officer, Dr Abdulmajeed Yakubu, said that Journalists should be abreast with basic concepts of infodemics.
He encouraged Journalists to redouble their efforts in capacity development on fact-checking any reports on disease outbreaks to mitigate the spread of misinformation, disinformation and mal-information to maintain the trust of the public.
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