Africa: Russian Disinformation Popularizes Sputnik V Vaccine in Africa allafrica.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from allafrica.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
In Africa, public opinion is often difficult to measure, whether due to conflict, undemocratic regimes, or a lack of administrative capacity. To work around these challenges, Novetta collects and curates traditional and social media data from fifty-four African countries. Novetta’s Rumor Tracking Program (RTP) was developed specifically to track misinformation and disinformation associated with COVID-19 and vaccines in development.
The RTP reveals that the Pfizer vaccine, compared to other vaccines in phase III clinical trials, has maintained the highest rate of positive press and social media coverage across Africa since April: 52 percent of extracted quotes from traditional and social media were favorable to the Pfizer vaccine. The positive public perception of the Pfizer vaccine was largely driven by the uptick in discussion on November 9 the day Pfizer announced its early findings suggesting that the vaccine could be more than 90 percent effective. Recent news of the Moderna v