Ceylon Today Editorial

Fake News and the AIDS Scare

09 May 2017

The spread of fake news has reached an unprecedented level in the recent times. And it hasn't just been local and isolated – only to have occurred in Sri Lanka – but has become a viral and worldwide phenomenon. Of course, it's not the first time it has happened. People tend to spread invalid and wrong information regardless of the situation, the potential consequences that it might lead to and it has been happening since time immemorial. It's nothing new to us. Spreading fake news is a part of human nature.

Recently, there were several reports that circulated via the internet and social media networks about a group of individuals who do home visits under the false pretence of being medical officers of the Ministry of Health, collecting blood samples. The story goes to say that the quack doctors while collecting blood will inject with unsterilized needles that spreads the HIV virus. The story, with all its misplaced good intentions, warned the public not to allow anyone into their homes, who claimed they were from the Ministry of Health conducting a medical health inquiry.

In actuality however, the story has been proven rather inaccurate. The Ministry of Health, upon hearing the news, lodged a complaint with the Criminal Investigation Department requesting to investigate into the source of the false information spread on the internet which they claimed to have "tarnished the credibility of the Ministry". The Ministry was pushed to make an adamant statement on the matter, disregarding the false news and reported that the health officials visit houses at night to collect blood smear samples, as the microfilariae – the minute larvae – that cause lymphatic filariasis, also known as elephantiasis, that circulates in the blood gets active at night.

The ministry noted that the standard method for diagnosing active infection is the identification of microfilariae in a blood smear by microscopic examination and health officials will come in uniforms to take blood samples. Seeing criminal intent in spreading the false news that would cripple the ministry's credibility, Ministry of Health was pushed to make the complaint to the Criminal Investigation Department.

Although it was a rather destructive and risky situation, the incident was a clarion call to the Ministry of Health to be more open and informative when it comes to matters which directly involve the public. It is a clear cut warning sign, not just for the Ministry of Health, but also other ministries of the government, other government institutions and authorities and the government itself. If such institutions were more accountable, more open to the public, informing them and managing public relations properly, this could have been avoided in the first place. In other words, the false news of the HIV spreading medical officers of the Ministry of Health would not have made much of an impact, if the ministry had announced what they were going to do in the first place. It would be sad indeed if we have a government which cannot communicate with its people, in a backdrop where it has extensively promoted concepts such as Right to Information, Freedom of Speech and so on.

Of course there's the other side to this story; the part which attempts to exacerbate this country's irrational fear towards HIV and AIDS.

Last year we saw an entire village turning against a mother and her six-year-old boy due to a misplaced HIV/ AIDS scare that ran rampant. It later involved Minister of Education Akila Viraj Kariyawasam who intervened to resolve the matter but ended up making it worse. Similarly, this year another such case was reported where a young girl was forced to leave her school and eventually her home in that village due to the spread of a false HIV infection story. Like these few instances, this latest addition to the shame of a country we live in, has also spread like wildfire regardless of it being inaccurate.

Why do we do this? Why do we go above and beyond to scare each other by spreading false information that only seeks the isolation of an individual or a group from the society? Yes, HIV/ AIDS has no potential cure as of yet, but since it was first reported in Sri Lanka in 1987 the world has become increasingly developed in addressing the disease. More things that we didn't know about the disease then are known for a fact now. It's just that we are interested in knowing them in the first place!

It's always better to be informed than to be scared. The only way to fight irrational fear is to think rationally. We, as a country, are failing because we cannot think for ourselves. It's because we are ill-informed, uninterested and ignorant. We look for the easy answer no matter how irrational it is and untrue it is. Until we change that attitude, we will never get anywhere.