“The World Health Organisation (WHO) coined the word “infodemic” referring to an overabundance of information and the rapid spread of misleading or fabricated news, images, and videos. It furthermore added that – Like the virus, it is highly contagious and grows exponentially. It also complicates COVID-19 pandemic response efforts.

“We’re not just battling the virus,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “We’re also battling the trolls and conspiracy theorists that push misinformation and undermine the outbreak response.”

Responding to this, the Accelerator Lab in Tanzania together with its partner Xsense AI designed an experiment to conduct web scrapping on Twitter data to understand the extent of misleading information related to COVID-19 in Tanzania, this exercise was conducted right after the first patient was identified in the country. The exercise intended to develop data sets that authorities can use to develop communication messages related to the pandemic. We used Kinondoni district in Dar Es Salaam region as a pilot.”

To read the full story, visit UNDP Tanzania’s website.