Health ministry to use social media to counter vaccine fears

The health ministry has decided to use social media platforms like Whatsapp and Youtube to counter misleading claims by "mischief mongers" about the measles-rubella (MR) vaccine, days after it launched a campaign to deliver the drug to children.
Terming it as "crisis response" immediately after such reports appeared, the ministry has taken a host of initiatives including taking religious leaders on board, issuing statements through ministers of minority communities and even circulating testimonal videos through social media platforms dispelling such fears.
"We have to deal with mischief mongers. Our ministry is going to put forth facts and evidence and expert opinion. We are going to tell people, you have a choice, either to believe somebody who is talking like that, or somebody else who is talking facts," additional secretary Arun Panda said.

The comments came after alleged reports of campaigns on social media that the vaccine was not safe. There were even alleged reports circulating on social media that the immunisation drive of the ministry was a conspiracy to control the population of Muslims.
The Health Ministry today convened a meeting of an Expert Advisory Group to recommend strategies to end the scourge of these killer and debilitating diseases by 2020 to accelerating efforts to eliminate measles and control rubella.
Officials said that the counter campaign will accompany the health campaign to deliver the MR vaccine to about 41 crore children between the ages of nine months and 15 years over the next 18 months.

Measles-Rubella (MR) vaccine has already been introduced as Measles-Rubella (MR) campaign, starting in February 2017 from five states and UTs - Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Goa, Puducherry and Lakshadweep.

The MR campaign is expected to accelerate India's efforts to eliminate measles by the year 2020.
"We have taken religious leaders on board. There are religious leaders who have made annoucements on the Friday prayers, we have got ministers from the minority community to give out statements, both written and oral. Doctors belonging to that community have also reached out," said Vandana Gurnani, joint secretary, health ministry.
She said that videos have also been made during such vaccination campaign where children and mothers have given their testimonials.

"These short videos have been circulated through social media - Whatsapp and Youtube. The counter videos from people, mothers, children and fathers, they have been circulated. We came up with these immediately after these mis-campaigns came. This was like a crisis response," she said.