In a bid to build a community that is informed, resilient, and empowered in the face of health misinformation, the Nigeria Health Watch (NHW) has entered into partnership with the Niger State Government to train twenty five agents as health misinformation management fellows.
GoldenNews Online report that the fellows who are drawn from various sectors were empowered with relevant information and skills to enable them function effectively as change agents.
While declaring the training open, Deputy Director, Disease Control, Niger state Ministry of Secondary and Tertiary Health, Dr. Ibrahim Na’Allah said they were disturbed at the rate misinformation about the health sector especially public health is projected.
Accordingly, he said “we are hoping that after the completion of the three-day intensive capacity-building training for the 25 newly inaugurated fellows, the issue of health misinformation will soon be a thing of the past in the state.
It should be noted that after the three day intensive training, the fellows have eight weeks to work on various projects as groups.
In her remarks, World Health Organisation (WHO)-certified infodemic manager in Nigeria, Okechi Nzedibe, told participants that the main objective is to curb various forms of misinformation.
While urging the participants to take the training seriously, Nzedibe disclosed that lack of sufficient accurate information breed rumour, which graduates into misinformation and the transcends into Infodemic.
The Programme Coordinator, Abara Erim and other facilitators while calling on participants to be good ambassadors of the state and Nigeria Health Watch (NHW), expressed satisfaction at their (participants) level of commitment.
Other faciliatirs include, Solomon Oladimeji, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Coordinator, Sunday Oko, Programme Assistant and Sonia Biose.