Johannes Marisa A CONSPIRACY theory refers to a hypothesised conspiracy with specific characteristics, such as an opposition to the mainstream consensus among those people who are qualified to evaluate its accuracy.
These theories resist falsification and are reinforced by circular reasoning, both evidence against the conspiracy and the absence of it are re-interpreted as evidence of its truth. Therefore, the conspiracy becomes a matter of faith rather than something that can be proven or disapproved. It is not a secret that conspiracist ideation may be psychologically or pathologically harmful.
The world has been trembling since 2019 because of the heinous COVID-19, a virus first detected in Wuhan province, China. Many medical interventions have been made in a bid to combat the effects of the virus, alas, conspiracy theories have often hampered all efforts.
Globally, conspiracy theories have been closely linked to prejudice, propaganda, witch-hunts, wars and genocide. Aids denialism by the government of South Africa caused an estimated 330 000 deaths from HIV, while conspiracy theories about genetically modified foods led the government of Zambia to reject food aid during famine, at a time when three million people were facing starvation. In essence, conspiracy theories have become impediments to improved public health, encouraging opposition to vaccination and water fluoridation among others and have thus, been linked to outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases.
COVID-19 has wreaked havoc since 2019 with at least 5,45 million people having succumbed to the virus and close to 300 million cases having been recorded globally. This is appalling considering that there are many undocumented cases because of poor data collation and reporting. There are many countries that do not remit COVID-19 morbidity and mortality reports to the World Health Organisation and automatically there is information bias. The result is poor planning and global lack of strategic implementation. The COVID-19 scourge is not showing signs of abating.
Instead, cases are soaring with global daily cases now exceeding two million. The only good news at the moment is the low case fatality ratio that is prevalent. The Omicron strain has proven to be very fast in terms of transmissibility but less virulent than the Delta variant which hit Zimbabwe between June and September 2021 during the third wave. Research is still on-going about possible long-term complications of this mutant strain.
Vaccination is one public health measure that has proven to be very important during pandemics and it is not a secret that during the Asian flu pandemic of 1957, American microbiologist Maurice Hilleman made a vaccine within four months to stop the H2N2 flu that was ravaging the world at the time. It was to be the same in 1968 when the Hong Kong flu struck and the same microbiologist made another vaccine to halt the spread of the deadly virus. The pandemic was brought to a surprise stop and the world was ecstatic as many lives were saved.
Today, COVID-19 is still showing its canine teeth without any signs of abatement. Scientists have worked around the clock in order to clamp the COVID-19 spinal cord. Numerous vaccines have thus been made, however, conspiracy theories have flooded social media resulting in many people snubbing vaccination. The government of Zimbabwe had a target to vaccinate at least 60% of the eligible population in 2021 in order to achieve herd immunity. Unfortunately, only about 21% of the population was fully vaccinated. Conspiracy theories were thrown all over with sophisticated misinformation and disinformation. So many issues were raised about the vaccines from the first day they were released to the masses up to today.
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The gullible ones believed in the theories while those who believed in science got vaccinated. We need to vaccinate as many people as possible if we are to win the fight against pandemics of this nature that have the potential to linger among us for a long time. Conspiracy theories had some of the following stories:
- That COVID-19 vaccines were a ploy by the Chinese to eliminate Africans from the globe — this is untrue as the vaccines are now everywhere in the world with Chinese-made vaccines being used in Asia, South America and the Caribbeans.
- That COVID-19 vaccines cause sub-fertility — we have noted that no such thing is happening as vaccinated women have fallen pregnant.
- That COVID-19 vaccines cause unexplained deaths in a few months — it is almost a year now after the vaccines were introduced in Zimbabwe and the country has not experienced unprecedented sudden deaths attributed to vaccines.
- That gene-based vaccines like Pfizer, Moderna can cause serious auto-immune reactions in the body and sudden death. The world is still to witness deaths of that nature from the above-mentioned vaccines.
People are reminded to follow public health measures as we endeavour to bring health to everyone. Get the correct information for the betterment of your health!
- Johannes Marisa is the president of the Medical and Dental Private Practitioners Association of Zimbabwe. He writes here in his personal capacity.
