In the age of the internet, it is worse than we imagined a lot of misinformation regarding COVID-19 and its vaccine. The misinformation has been in the spotlight, especially most of the comments picked up from the organised groups, politicians, community, religious and cultural leaders. The speculative words and commentaries have greatly amplified the rate of the misinformation and disinformation into the mainstream that is almost affecting vaccine uptake or taking it with worries and anxieties about anticipated harms.
In the last few weeks, the Australian Government published titled, “misinformation and truths about Coronavirus (COVID-19)”. The publication provides more information about the COVID-19 vaccine misinformation for the public to clearly understand what right information and evidence to know about the COVID-19 and its vaccine.
The Centre for Migrant and Refugee Health (CMRH) is running a survey roughly showing 30% 40% of the people from South Sudanese backgrounds say there are willing to get vaccinated and 60% to 70% has hesitancy to COVID-19 vaccine with the enormous ill feelings. The statistic is concerning and blamed on the role social media and the reluctance of “Big Tech” companies to take steps in the right directions to address the issue that influence negative perceptions towards COVID-19 and its vaccine.
In this regard, the CMRH aimed to demystify misinformation and disinformation affecting confidence in COVID-19 vaccines, focusing on the multicultural communities in Victoria, Australia. Our primary focus is to design and utilise the knowledge, and awareness-raising strategies such as video clips in various languages to address an individual and social group who are hesitant to undertake the COVID-19 vaccine.
Furthermore, engage various multicultural community leaders from different religious faiths and cultural backgrounds.
