TELL ME

Europe recognizes TELL ME project’s role in Ebola research

amministratore — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 14:45:50 +0000

The TELL ME project has been included by the European Commission in the Global overview of Ebola research. The document – which provides a selected list of projects from all around the world with strong pertinence for the management of the Ebola outbreak – mainly focuses on the analysis, performed by TELL ME experts, about the main actors and topics of discussion in relation to Ebola on Twitter.

Also, on the EU web portal, TELL ME is credited for the e-learning course for primary care professionals – which was adopted by the Italians Associations of Doctors and Nurses respectively, reaching about 30,000 Italian health professionals, including a dedicated course on Ebola – and the TELL ME Communication Kit, which also offers practical guidance at different levels which can be useful to consider in order to overcome communication obstacles in the context of the Ebola crisis.

Tags:

Ebola

The Ebola online course is ready

amministratore — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 08:57:26 +0000

The online course for primary care staff about Ebola, developed by TELL ME, has been released and is freely available, given prior registration, at this address. The course is open to all the persons interested and is made up of three cases and a full dossier with all the necessary information to get properly documented about Ebola. Italian healthcare workers will be able to gain credits through this course, by doing it on their dedicated e-learning platform.

Practical guide to improve communication during disease outbreaks launched

TELL ME — Wed, 04 Feb 2015 16:58:40 +0000

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Practical guide to improve communication during disease outbreaks launched

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Practical guide to improve communication during disease outbreaks launched

TELLME passes on the torch

amministratore — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 12:06:39 +0000

After three years of activity, TELLME project has reached its conclusion and the conference held in Venice on last December 4-5 was the occasion to present the project’s main products. Several members of the TELLME consortium are now part of the ASSET project, which will pick up the torch and take advantage of the knowledge, the experience and the results gathered by TELLME to develop a comprehensive strategy for a better response to the threats represented by infectious diseases.

Quando i virus infettano la comunicazione

TELL ME — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 14:43:34 +0000

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Quando i virus infettano la comunicazione

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Quando i virus infettano la comunicazione

Quarantining health workers returning from Ebola affected countries is “bad science,” says public health adviser

TELL ME — Mon, 08 Dec 2014 14:42:42 +0000

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Quarantining health workers returning from Ebola affected countries is “bad science,” says public health adviser

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Quarantining health workers returning from Ebola affected countries is “bad science,” says public health adviser

TELL ME, Tell You: Bridging theory and practice for effective communications during infectious disease crises

TELL ME — Tue, 25 Nov 2014 15:19:37 +0000

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TELL ME, Tell You: Bridging theory and practice for effective communications during infectious disease crises

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TELL ME, Tell You: Bridging theory and practice for effective communications during infectious disease crises

A close look at Ebola

amministratore — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 10:57:08 +0000

Planning a clinical trial in order to test a possible treatment for Ebola. This is the reason that brought Roberto Satolli – physician and journalist, director of Zadig and member of the TELL ME project – to the small fishing town of Lakka, a few miles from Freetown, in Sierra Leone. He is there with Emergency, the Istituto Spallanzani of Rome and the Reggio Emilia IRCCS, to assess the situation and discuss the protocol that should lead the research. “In order to better coordinate some aspects of the experimentation, my presence on the field was necessary,” explains Roberto. “In these days I am participating to meetings and discussions with health operators and members of NGOs. We are trying to understand which are the best approaches to tackle the disease. For instance, there is an ongoing ethical debate about compassionate cures and the feasibility of randomized clinical trials. And communication is a key element in such a debate.”

Roberto is mainly dealing with healthcare workers, but he also has the chance to see the world outside the centre. “Coming here helped me to realize the seriousness of the situation, which is way different from what we imagine, in the Western countries. Ebola here is real and people die.”

Since his arrival at Freetown airport, he could not help but notice all the signs explaining what to do to avoid Ebola infection. “There are two interesting elements about them, in terms of communication,” says Roberto. “The first is that they are mainly pictures, since two thirds of the adult population of the country are illiterate. The second is that they show people vomiting or defecating directly on the ground, since here is quite common to do that. Showing a person that uses a privy would not have been that effective.”

There are relevant cultural differences in the way people behave and react to a dramatic crisis like this one. Differences that everybody involved in communication should be aware of. Westerners are scared by Ebola. This is a fact made evident by many clues. One of them is the traffic generated on Twitterabout the disease: 21,037,331 tweets during October in the US, while Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone combined cannot reach 14 thousands. A difference that cannot be explained only by internet connectivity. As pointed outby Gregg Mitman, on the New England Journal of Medicine, fear has its own ecology. “It varies with cultural traditions and religious beliefs. Rich people experience it differently from poor people. And it changes over time,” writes Mitman.

Those living in Sierra Leone are scared too but, apparently, in a different way. “My first impact with this place was, in a way, surreal,” tells Roberto. “There are not too many people in the streets during the day but in the evening the mood changes and the town becomes quite lively. Obviously, things are changed. Many small bars have been closed for security reasons since the beginning of the epidemics, but other shops and markets are still open. At markets’ entrance there is always a container with a bleaching solution to wash your hands and somebody that takes your temperature with a thermometer gun. I usually have my temperature measured four-five times a day. Most of these checkpoints are established by the government, but some are the result of citizen self-organization. In general, I would say that fear is not that palpable – not as much as I was expecting. However, you can feel that there is something wrong going on.”

Different environmental conditions means different reactions to fear. “These people have a relationship with risk, diseases and death that is quite different from ours.” For instance, in Sierra Leone, malaria still has a high incidence and is killing much more persons than Ebola. And then there are all the consequences of years of civil war. “Unfortunately, fear and death are part of the life of this people,” concludes Roberto.

Close encounters of the third kind

amministratore — Tue, 11 Nov 2014 06:43:25 +0000

In the globalised environment, the interconnection and interdependence of economies enable pathogens to spread in unprecedented ways and extents. Human to human transmission (close encounters of the first kind) occur with pathogens that are well adapted to the human host, and spread between countries and continents. In a similar way, pathogens spreading between animals (close encounters of the second kind) spread not only within a farm, but also between different farms, due to trade, or live animals or vector movement, in a transboundary manner. Close encounters of the third kind are those that enable pathogens that are maintained in the animal reservoir to cross the species barrier and infect humans. Movement of infected people or of the animal reservoir across countries and continents continuously cause outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases, even at great distance from the index case. This has occurred on a global scale with pandemic viruses such as HIV or influenza H1N1, or, to a minor extent, with the diffusion of West Nile Virus at a national level, or with minor international spread – so far – as the MERS coronavirus. Certainly, increased awareness and response capacities are essential to the prompt identification and management of these outbreaks. However, greater transparency and the possibility of obtaining diagnostic reagents, viral strains and sequences in a timely manner would enable the scientific community as a whole to efficiently advance in the progression of knowledge. There are now several initiatives that are going in this direction. Initiatives that will be fully operational only if scientists will contribute with their data and materials.

In order to maximise the efforts of the scientific community, another issue that is essential is the capability of the scientific community itself to communicate with stakeholders. Here we need to develop close encounters of the first kind by engaging the general public in several aspects of science and health. This can be done through health festivals that should become part of science festivals worldwide. Scientists also need to continue to engage with other scientists operating in parallel disciplines (encounters of the second kind) to cross-fertilize and expand their areas of knowledge. Very relevant are also the close encounters of the third kind, which concern communication between scientists and politicians. National and European politicians ultimately allocate funding and are responsible for direction and strategy within a given field. However, politicians’ and health professionals’ decisions are not taken based on the same data. This causes a misalignment between the priorities of the scientific community and those that are brought forward by political will. Politicians’ decisions are influenced by newspaper headlines, by the interests of their constituency, or by the protests or lobbying activity of the interest groups they represent. Thus, an issue that was believed to potentially become a major health issue, which is well managed and kept under control, or does not evolve into a worrisome disease, will be perceived by the media as a hoax or as a result of conspiracy between scientists and Big Pharma. Scientists and healthcare workers often achieve great results in the identification and diagnosing of novel pathogens. However, media coverage about the escape of a virus from a laboratory, the risk of gain of function experiments with H5N1 viruses or the latest news on the inefficacy of Tamiflu, saturate the interest of the political establishment, and above all causes cuts in funding and shakes the credibility of the scientific community as a whole. This determines a loss of both focus and direction, which in turns led to a loss of energy, resources and time.

It seems reasonable that the scientific community understands the importance of establishing a communication channel with the political environment and of being prepared to reject the conspiracy theory or hoax accusation, whenever applicable. Such an approach would bring added value to their work and would enable the medical research community to do a better job for public health.

Ilaria Capua DVM, PhD, MP

Virologist, Member of Italian Parliament

European Congress Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) 2014 Excellence Award Lecture

TELL ME experts at the IMED conference

amministratore — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 17:19:28 +0000

The TELL ME project will have a relevant exposure at the International Meeting on Emerging Diseases and Surveilance (IMED), which will be held in Wien from October 31^st to November 3^rd.

Anat Gesser-Edelsburg (School of Public Health, University of Haifa), Roberta Villa (Zadig) and Mitali Wroczynski (BMJ) will present three posters, each one related to some of the consortium’s results: an innovative integrative framework to understand the dynamics of infectious diseases communication, a prototype of an online course for healthcare professionals, and an analysis on the power of social media in risk communication.

Tags:

Risk Communication

Social media

Infectious disease outbreak