Carlos Mendez (São Paulo, Brazil) watched his father die from COVID-19 in April 2020, gasping for breath in their cramped apartment, refusing to go to the hospital until it was too late. His father’s death wasn’t inevitable. It was caused by misinformation—an infodemic that killed as surely as the virus itself.
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According to WHO, an infodemic is too much information including false or misleading information in digital and physical environments during a disease outbreak.
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Infodemic management is the systematic use of risk- and evidence-based analysis and approaches to manage the infodemic and reduce its impact on health behaviours during health emergencies.
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WHO established EARS (Early AI-supported Response with Social Listening), an early AI-supported response and social listening tool to help health authorities quickly identify rising narratives and “information voids” ….
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Carlos transformed his grief into action. He became a community health educator, working with WHO-supported infodemic management programs in Brazil.
“I teach people what I wish my father had known: how to identify misinformation, how to check sources, how to distinguish credible medical information from viral lies,” [explained Carlos].
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