With the WHO statement on Friday that "the end is yet to come" for the emerging coronavirus (SARS Cove 2) that causes Covid-19, the last thing the world needed - and the continent in particular - was more rumors impeding disease control.
Scientists and health officials have always warned of the danger of rumors, because people question the seriousness of the Corona virus, which leads them to neglect the rules of social divergence, and also do not follow the instructions of the ministries of health, claiming the existence of a "conspiracy" that is being hatched for humanity like "Bill Gates Slice".
"The (emerging Corona virus epidemic) has not yet ended, and will not end until the moment when the virus is not present anywhere in the world," WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said.
The rumors that we will be covering today have spread in Africa, and the results of a study conducted by the international Save the Children based on thousands of interviews with people in several African countries have shown; Rumors and false news pervade the population, who fear a threat that is rarely seen as a pandemic.
Bill Gates video
The results, which were covered by the Spanish newspaper El Pais in a special article, confirm that incorrect information or lack of data on a topic encourages the spread of false news and rumors about it.
The newspaper pointed out that at the beginning of the Corona crisis, the governor of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, Mike Sunko, published a video - and it was widely shared - by Bill Gates, Microsoft founder, talking about emerging diseases.
According to the Kenyan official - who distributed to some of his countrymen the bottles of alcoholic cognac, saying he was protecting from the Coruna virus - Gates had known since 2015 the spread of the Corona virus.
The newspaper shows that Gates in the video referred to was only repeating the results of research conducted by hundreds of scientists years ago on the transmission of viruses from animals to humans, such as the SARS virus and AIDS.
The newspaper pointed out that the story of the Governor of Nairobi shows the importance of the role that local public figures play in spreading false and misleading news in different regions of the world, according to the Atlantic Forensic Research Laboratory of the Atlantic Council, which studies the phenomenon of fake news globally.
Slice planting
Millions of people who watched Bill Gates' video talking about viruses tended to be convinced of the theory that the man wanted to control humans by implanting a slide in their bodies or using digital tattoos. They also believe that Gates already obtained a patent a few years ago to treat the virus that he released himself.
Commenting on this, Zarine Kharazian - from the Council of Atlantic Digital Forensic Research Laboratory - said that this kind of information is generally transmitted when a celebrity amplifies it, or even some traditional media.
Another model from Nigeria was also presented by the newspaper, where former Aviation Minister Femi Fanny Kaudi - who has a large following among Christians in the south of the country - shared several publications claiming that Bill Gates is part of the powerful underground elite that wants to control the world through Corona and 5G technology .
She also reported the story of Madagascar's President Andre Rajoelina who said on March 26 that his country had "discovered" a treatment against the Coronavirus, a herbal extract.
In Tanzania, President Jean Magovole urged his countrymen to prevent corona virus by using steam baths, which are small cabins erected on the streets, and said that his son was cured of the virus by inhaling vapor with lemon and ginger.
Corona in Africa
As of Saturday, the number of new HIV infections in Africa has exceeded 180,000, and 4,950 deaths, according to the WorldMeter website.
The African Union pledged last Thursday to train a hundred thousand health workers, and mobilized a million people working in the field of community service to accelerate and expand Corona virus tests across the continent.
The African Centers for Disease Control launched a partnership to accelerate Corona virus testing with several governments and businesses to expand capacity across Africa and coordinate efforts with countries.
"We need to increase our exams very quickly to between 10 and 20 million checks to precede the injury curve," said John Nkengasong, director of the African Centers for Disease Control. "This is a call to action, meaning we must mobilize everyone."
Nkengasung launched a new initiative, "Partnerships to Increase Tests in Africa", which aims to increase tests across the continent.
He added that 3.4 million examinations have been conducted so far in Africa, at 1700 examinations per million people, compared to about 37 thousand examinations per million people in Italy, and thirty thousand examinations per million in Britain.
Even with supplies from African centers and other sources, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change says there is a gap of about 25 million checks to reach the average examinations in Europe.