A summary of proceedings after the colloquium which was held on November 28, 2009 in Taipei

After the SRAS and the H5N1 avian influenza, the outbreak of the new influenza A/H1N1 highlighted the importance of communication in pandemic preparedness and response. The uncertainties regarding the emerging disease and the difficulty in predicting its evolution made decision-making delicate. The fear of creating panic, on the one hand, and the desire to promote the necessary behavioural changes from the public, on the other, was a balance that proved at times difficult to keep. Some national authorities were accused of fear-mongering, or on the contrary of downplaying real existing risks in order to reduce anxieties. The eagerness to...

Read more: Communication is key! Best practises from the management of global health outbreaks.

From the Global response to Avian Influenza through Pandemic A/H1N1, towards "One Health"How much information should governments communicate to the public? How transparent should they be? Should they communicate all the information that they have, or rather leave aside information that could run the risk of being misinterpreted? And should honesty be preferred to transparency?This question, which characterises all policy-making, is made even more complex here by the existence of what Dr. VANDERSMISSEN called the “scientific dilemma”. Science on the emergence, development and evolution of a pandemic is not fixed – this was clearly exemplified by the emergence of a pandemic of porcine origin in the South American continent, when a...

Read more: Roles and Limits of Communication

 Drawing on his clinical experience, Professor Soebandrio demonstrated how communicating risk is similar to preparing medicine:Must find an indicator – just as a patient demonstrates symptoms, so does a community. Considering the symptoms, the doctor decides on further action and in the same way a government will consider the need to communicate. Ingredient – patients can have differing reactions to medicine and communities demonstrate the same variability to public health messages. The content of the message might need to vary from country to country. Dose – how much information should we give? If too much medicine is administered the patient will not heal, if the public is bombarded with public health messages people will stop...

Read more: The Formula of Risk Communication

Ms Leboeuf wove previous speakers themes together to sharply illustrate two recent examples in France during the H1N1 outbreak.An apparently arbitrary decision to not close infants’ schools even if cases of H1N1 were reported, reversing a previous decree that schools must be closed if three cases are detected, indicated the importance of ensuring that relevant information is communicated and that bureaucracies must be flexible enough to deal with new crises rather than rely on previous models of action.Her second example described a situation whereby H1N1 vaccines were initially available to strictly defined groups and then later to broader groups. While this change in process was not official, people seeking vaccination still had to...

Read more: Communication and its Contradictions

Lessons for the Global Management of Health and Environmental Risks and Crises

The term “Avian Influenza” (AI) refers both to: 1/ the existing and related avian influenza epizooty and epidemic, and 2/ the possibility of an influenza pandemic, that would result from a mutation of the H5N1 virus.

The issue of AI therefore implies two necessities: 1/ the need to control the existing avian influenza virus and 2/ the need to prepare for the next pandemic.

The reaction to the AI issue has thus articulated itself, over the years, in two movements: 1/ a strong solidarity drive, from the better prepared, to the less prepared and 2/ a “national preparedness drive”, as the majority of countries strove to strengthen their own capacity to...

Read more: The Global Fight Against Avian Influenza

Last week, the Internet showed again its formidable rapidity: on Sunday night (May 19 2009), a prolonged but moderate earthquake shook the area of Los Angeles. Almost instantaneously, people started to flood Twitter with messages and the news of the earthquake was coursing through the world of microblogging long before the Internet press published the information. Rumours on the Internet can spread like pandemics and the way to control their nuisance could be equally employed to prevent pandemics.
As the main task of the World Health Organisation (WHO) is to be a worldwide health monitor, teams of the organization also dedicate themselves to track down the rumours of illnesses on the Internet in order to analyse them and evaluate the risks...

Read more: Rumour and prevention

The speaker talked about the challenges of facing the H1N1 in the Taipei region and how drawing upon previous pandemic experiences helped ensure a successful outcome.

The SARS epidemic of 2003 highlighted the communication difficulties between local government and central government. The command structure was changed in the aftermath of SARS. Under the revised system, the central government operated the command center and local governments executed these commands. This ensured that messages delivered during H1N1 were more consistent.

The government had two phases of dealing with H1N1:
1.Stage of containment – June 2009. Many foreign tourists so hotels used as checkpoints; and
2.Stage of mitigation – September 2009. Coincided...

Read more: The Challenges of Facing the H1N1 in the Taipei Region

Communication is part of the process of the revelation of truths. A truth is not a given fact as the reaction of the public influences what the truth is. This is the relationship between observed and the observation. The nature of a truth to be communicated can be changed. It is a systemic (that is, linguistic and symbolic) exchange in which dimensions of information, education, manipulation and public debate take place.Communication in a time of crisis can only be understood when put in the context of one of the channels through which society today is able to be in identity and in solidarity and in submission in different spheres of time – the future and the crisis. Those dimensions must be considered together as the worst...

Read more: Communication in a Time of Crisis

Distributing contraception to Pakistan’s large rural population has been a challenge for Glaxo Smith Kline. Rather than utilise the increasingly popular social networking sites and other digital media, the company has successfully resorted to less technologically sophisticated methods. Glaxo Smith Kline has utilised radio advertising to reach and mobilise the rural sector. Radio is part of an integrated communication model that also includes interpersonal and community mobilization through activities such as marketplace interviews and roadshows.Glaxo Smith Kline was particularly successful in distributing and encouraging use of contraception. Realising that the information provided with contraception medication was in small print and...

Read more: Inform and Communicate Through Community Mobilization

Cooperation with the Mass Media

In countries with a high level of connectedness of the population, a central issue in vertical communication will be the control of the information accessible to populations. Dr KUO’s presentation, which focused on the relationship of the government with the mass media, is revealing in this regard. Policy makers and communicators in highly connected environments must make do with the instant availability of parallel communication channels and contradictory information which threaten to blur the government’s message, and impede behavioural change. Dr KUO showed a video taken from a Taiwanese show, featuring a young girl whose left arm and leg had – allegedly – been paralysed following vaccination...

Read more: Striking the Balance Between Alert and Panic

Singapore’s communication strategy on the Pandemic A/H1N1 has been quite country and culture-specific. Singapore’s response system, the DORSCON (Disease Outbreak Response System), evaluated pandemic severity using a classification distinct from that of the WHO, integrating the parameters of transmissibility and virulence of a disease.

Singapore’s communication strategy was also remarkable for its directive style. In the words of Dr MENON, “soft warnings and reassurances do not work”, whilst “fear can be a constructive emotion.” Thus rather directive measures, in place of incentive ones, were communicated to the public – Home Quarantine Orders for travellers returning from Mexico and voluntary quarantine for those...

Read more: Managing Uncertainty in a Pandemic: the Singapore experience