Abstract
More than 2 years has passed since the pandemic was declared in 2019 due to the
severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which was later
declared to be the pathogen causing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). During
this time, many healthcare systems faced numerous challenges to control the high
morbidity and mortality of the disease. Unlike previous pandemics, the actions
against this pandemic started quickly on both the global and country levels.
These actions were, scientifically, to study the virus as well as transmission
process and to develop medications and vaccines against it. Also, we had to
protect people from transmission by knowing how best to apply precautionary
methods. However, there were some unexpected negative consequences of the
pandemic and one of those the World Health Organization (WHO) called
‘infodemic’. This term infodemic refers to the manipulation of a population’s
behavior in the assessment of information (or, more accurately, lack of
assessment) related to the use of medications, particularly vaccines.
Unfortunately, even with positive development in science, there was limited and
often contradictory amount of information on the safety and efficacy profile of
drugs and vaccines. Therefore, this made it harder for public health agencies to
determine the impact of the incidence of adverse reactions and events associated
with interventions such as vaccines. Hence, risk communication needs to be
emphasized during any pandemic, as ignoring risk communications to different
stakeholders could undermine all well-intended therapeutic interventions. Given
this, it is important that the different stakeholders involved (health
authorities, societies, healthcare professionals, etc.) assess the different
behavioral patterns within their respective populations and propose appropriate
strategies to act. Such an approach complement having risk management and
communication plans for this and future pandemics. The aim of this article is to
explore how information management, risk management, and risk communication
during the pandemic can provide valuable lessons for the future.