Debunking COVID-19 myths and remedies

Episode 28

As coronavirus cases rise in Africa and people search for ways to avoid the disease, myths about steaming and herbal cures are quickly spreading. This week on Africa Science Focus, reporter Charles Pensulo speaks to the people who are working to spread the facts, and save lives. 

In last week’s episode, Africa Science Focus asked why coronavirus deaths and cases had rapidly increased in Africa, and we heard how knowledge gaps were being filled with misinformation.

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Africa Science Focus, with Selly Amutabi. 

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Transcript

Titus Divala: The other side of all these remedies though, Charles, is that they can be harmful. 

Limbani Gwata: Of course, there's no evidence to prove the remedies we are using so far, scientifically, but we're just using it by faith.

Motunrayo Joel: Try as much as possible to debunk these claims, because the life of someone you may know depends on it.

Host (Selly Amutabi): Global hopes for an escape from the dangers of coronavirus and the return to normal life are resting on the uptake of vaccines. But many obstacles remain. Vaccine distribution has not been equal across the world. And while many communities in Sub-Saharan Africa are eagerly waiting for access to vaccines, some are hesitant. Could misinformation and myths damage efforts to stop the spread of coronavirus in Africa? In our programme last week, Africa Science Focus asked why the number of coronavirus cases on the continent had rapidly increased in the past few months. And we heard how knowledge gaps were being filled with misinformation. This week, reporter Charles Pensulo takes a closer look at the misconceptions about treatments and vaccines that are being shared online, and what fact checkers and health advocates are doing to set the record straight. I'm Sally Amutabi. And this is Africa Science Focus. First up, we hear about steaming.

Limbani Gwata: So, as Africans, here in Malawi we believe that, for malaria, we have our local remedies. So if we use those local remedies, we feel that we'll be able to protect ourselves from the virus. 

Reporter (Charles Pensulo): Right, so tell me what kind of remedies do you use yourself? 

Limbani Gwata: For me, I usually use hot water to steam. Sometimes it's plain, usually it's plain water for me. But commonly, most of my colleagues and of course family members, they would use bluegum to steam because, from understanding that COVID-19 has symptoms of like flu, and of course malaria. So this helps, we believe that we'll be able to cure or to deal with the virus which is in our body. There is no evidence to prove the remedies we are using so far, scientifically, but we're just using it by faith. We don't know its effectiveness. But sometimes when you use those things, we become positive that okay, maybe I'll be okay. So when you're positive, you know that I think you can easily deal with the COVID-19 rather than being stressed.

Host: Limbani Gwata is one of many people across Sub Saharan Africa, who used traditional medicines. Herbal and traditional treatments are cheap and easy to get hold of. But many so-called 'cures' are not backed by scientific evidence and myths about these 'cures' can spread quickly online. Motunrayo Joel, a journalist and health researcher at Africa Check, a fact-checking non-profit, tells us more.

Motunrayo Joel: I can share a few of these absurd health cures we've come across and we've debunked. I think a recent one we debunked was about, advised people that they should steam with onion, garlic and lemon mixed together and that this will destroy the virus. Then another one said mixing bicarbonate soda and ginger could kill the virus. And I would say, I can boldly say that these fake cures are coming from people we call herbal doctors here in Nigeria, they have no business with science. A good number of times these people are wrong. Because whenever we reached out to experts, they say these claims have not been scientifically proven, and that these claims can be dangerous. I've heard stories of people who tried out concoctions and, you know, died. 

So on a daily basis we try as much as possible to debunk several of these sorts of claims we see because we believe that there's someone's life at risk there. These fake cures gets shared at a fast pace. You know today you could look at the post on Facebook and see that okay it has 15 shares and tomorrow by the time you check it again it has about 20 or even 30 shares. So whenever we have an opportunity to speak, we talk about these claims, these fake cures and we advise people to ignore them.

Host: That was Motunrayo Joel discussing the challenges of preventing the spread of fake news on social media and the impact misinformation can have on people's health and lives. Lolem Ngong is the chief of staff at Amref Health Africa. She tells Africa Science Focus that community health workers are central to public health education and vaccine confidence. 

Lolem Ngong: I, in my opinion, you know, most of the national taskforces should have probably had a behavioural scientists as part of the taskforce, who could really help ensure that we also built in behavioural change, because, you know, the infodemic is really around behaviour change, and people also are tired of COVID. So, when we hear claims like that, the most we can do is we consistently educate our community health workers, because your community health worker is going to be the guy who drives the motorcycle, you know, in Cameroon, we call them 'okadas', so it will be your okada driver, if you're in Kenya it's your matatu driver. So these are the community health workers, so invest a lot in educating them so that they can dispel these myths as they provide services within the community. You know, take, I mean, you know, whether you steam - if steaming makes you feel better it makes you feel better, but it should not stop you from adopting all the prevention measures.

So wear your mask, social distancing, stay at home if you can, wash your hands. We have no doubt that the infodemic will definitely affect vaccine uptake. There is already a small group of anti-vaxxers, right. And so with the information spread, yes, I mean, we don't know if people will be as open. And I think where we really, really, really need to work hard as public health people, policymakers, etc, where we have to put in a lot of effort is in ensuring that everyone, or a good majority of people, understand why taking the vaccine is important. You know, when we talk about research and development of vaccines, what does that mean? We have to break that down to the lay person. So they understand, you know, when you create a vaccine, this is the process. This is the process it goes through for approval. This is what happens in the final stage. This is what happens before a vaccine even ends up in a health centre.

Host: Steaming and herbs cannot prevent people from contracting COVID-19 or cure the disease. They can only help to alleviate some symptoms. Titus Divala tells Africa Science Focus how scientists test treatments and vaccines to confirm which ones are safe and effective.

Titus Divala: My name is Titus Divala. And I'm an epidemiologist. And I work with the University of Malawi College of Medicine and the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in London. For something to be called a cure, or a preventive measure for COVID-19, or any disease that we have, it really needs to go through a rigorous process of evaluating it. It is studied several times starting with in animals and then in humans, few people, and then a little bit more people and then tested in much larger numbers of people. At that point when it's actually working. It's confirmed as a cure or a preventive measure. That's what these vaccines that have just come out have gone through in the past 12 months. 

So this period has been associated with a lot of desperation by the population trying to find whatever works, which is very understandable. Even we scientists are also very desperate, several drugs have become potential cures because scientists are studying them in clinical trials. So the most recent one is ivermectin. Ivermectin is a drug that's used in veterinary medicine a lot, but it has not been really well studied and confirmed as a cure for COVID-19 or as a preventive treatment for COVID-19, there's really no evidence except for a certain group of people that are promoting it. And really getting a lot of people into bind. People are using [inaudible] generate doses of ivermectin and getting themselves injected or taking orally, which is very, very risky, I must say, it is not something that we should be taking. 

It's really basically around people thinking that the vaccines are not real, the vaccines are coming in, because other sectors of the world are trying to control whoever takes the vaccine in one way or the other. Having gone through all those processes at an incredibly fast, fast rate. Really, achieving a vaccine in just 10 months is rare. But here we are, we have the vaccine, at least six vaccine candidates now. But it is possible that people will refuse to get vaccinated because of this misinformation. 

Governments across the continent, but also the African CDC have media teams and information teams that go out to the public to deliver the right information. But to be honest, for example, in Malawi, what's lacking is getting to the community. We do have the initial response, but it's centralised. So what you do is you get to the community and you train the community, about COVID-19. People in the community do understand and appreciate what their leaders say, it is very difficult for them to connect with national leaders, but they'd rather connect with their local leaders. So the more we penetrate communities, the better. I wish the whole continent would do that. 

Reporter: Right. Thank you very much, doctor, for your time. 

Titus Divala: Thank you, Charles. And thanks so much for working on COVID-19 we really need to disseminate good information out there.

Host: Titus Divala and in today's report on the work being done to debunk coronavirus myths and misconceptions. Next week, we will hear more about coronavirus vaccines, what they are made from, how they work, and how they will be distributed in Africa. But before we go, we have a question from listener Benson Maganga.

Benson Maganga: Hi, Africa Science Focus. My name has Benson Maganga from Blantyre, Malawi. I have a question for you. I just want to know if physical exercise is necessary when you have coronavirus? Thank you.

Bridget Malewezi: The answer is twofold. Exercise in general is advised but in moderation. And also depending on the level of severity of the disease. As you know, with COVID 19, some people have mild infection or asymptomatic - they don't have any symptoms. For those ones, they could be able to do some moderate level of exercise, but nothing strenuous because also we know that sometimes this infection can affect your lungs and affect your breathing. So it's important not to over-exert yourself. So most of the time for people who, for example, have been diagnosed as COVID positive, self-managing at home, they do advise them not to just be lying in bed, because that's also not good for you. You're meant to be able to get up, walk, sometimes they're given a chance to walk around even like for example outside your yard. As long as for example you wear your mask. So moderate exercise, few walks, getting some fresh air outside is acceptable.

Host: Thanks to Benson Maganga for asking that important question about COVID-19 and thanks to Dr. Bridget Malewezi for taking the time to answer it. 

Have you got a question about science that you would like answered by an expert? Send us a text or voice message via WhatsApp to +254799042513. You can subscribe to our programme, download episodes and leave a review on your favourite podcast app or visit www.scidev.net. 

Today's programme was produced by Harrison Lewis, the editors were Fiona Broom and Jackie Opara-Fatoye, with reporting from Charles Pensulo. I'm Selly Amutabi, see you next Wednesday. 

This programme was funded by the European Journalism Centre through the European Development Journalism Grant Programme with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.