Bird Flu: The Communication Challenge

According to the article posted on SciDev.Net, lack of information is a significant contributor to human disease and one of the most important benefits of modern medical science has been its contribution to awareness of the way that diseases spread, leading to prevention strategies. However, the article argues that problems often occur when government authorities deliberately withhold information from the public. The author uses several examples to illustrate how lack of transparent communication can contribute to the impact of outbreaks of infectious diseases. For example, the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) might have been contained much sooner if medical authorities in the countries where it was first detected had been more open, both with their own people and with international agencies, about what was going on. Moreover, as China learned during the SARS outbreak, in an age of global information flows, knowledge of public health events is difficult to suppress. Even more important, to suppress such knowledge only generates distrust.

There is a similar danger with avian influenza (avian flu or bird flu) disease. Governments may be reluctant to share information about outbreaks, because of the financial and social consequences. While it is understandable that there is a need to reassure the general public about the scope and ability of the government to handle an outbreak, the article states that reassurance must be based on sound information, not on attempts to hide information that authorities may be embarrassed to reveal.

According to the article, science and health journalists have a key role to play in this process. Partly this is to ensure that they report fully and accurately on outbreaks of bird flu when they occur, while at the same time ensuring that the facts they report are kept in a legitimate perspective. To assist with this, SciDev is publishing a special section of SciDev.Net, entitled 'Bird Flu: The Facts', bringing together questions and answers about bird flu, news of scientific and policy developments, and links to sources of reliable information.

A second responsibility of journalists mentioned in the article is to ensure that governments are acting responsibly in dealing with the communication of facts. Where this is not the case -for example, where countries in East Asia have been slow to cooperate with the World Health Organization (WHO) in supplying information about incidences of bird flu - such failures to communicate should be highlighted in the public media.

The article concludes that "governments themselves must do more to ensure that channels of communication are opened up. This may mean letting journalists talk to individual scientists in research institutions, rather than insisting that all contact goes through official spokespeople. It can even go as far as adopting 'Freedom of Information Laws', such as those which operate in the United States, ensuring that information is only kept secret when there is a clear and legitimate reason for doing so. Transparency at all levels of decision-making must be the order of the day. It may be a tough message for some countries to learn. But in an era when the WHO is describing another worldwide flu epidemic as "inevitable and possibly imminent", anything less could have disastrous consequences."

Click here to access a related peer-reviewed summary on the Health e Communication website, and to participate in peer review.