NCDC Empowers Bauchi Health Workers

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in partnership with Breakthrough Action Nigeria has trained staff of the Bauchi State Primary Health Care Development Agency on infodemic management skills as part of efforts to check epidemics in the state and the country.

NCDC’s assistant director on health promotion, Dr OluBunmi Olofa, said the objective of the meeting was to update participants on global infodemic management and current reporting tools as well as develop a work plan for the state on infodemic management.

She said infodemic management is all about managing rumours, misleading information and an abundance of information that distract the normal disease prevention and control activities as they are threats to the goals of NCDC.

“Seven months ago, the NCDC deployed an Infodemic team to 12 states of the country, including Bauchi to train the states on information management. So this is just a break to have a reflection on what we have done so far, and what are the challenges and barriers we are encountering at the state. How far we have gone, what is the level of achievements, and how can we improve and strengthen infodemic management at the state level?

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“So far, the team made progress, they started very well, but based on the feedback we are getting now, we noticed that there are a lot of challenges because there are a lot of things that have disrupted the activities of the team and that is why we are here to address all these challenges,” she said.

The deputy project director of Risk Communication Breakthrough Action Nigeria, Dr Olayinka Umar Farouk, stated that Breakthrough Action Nigeria was supporting the country with risk communication and communication engagement efforts, of which one of the key pillars is infodemic management with funding support from global find and breakthrough technical assistance.