https://arab.news/6yywy
- The country’s health chief says his government uses social media messaging campaigns to reaches 76 percent of its target audience
- Pakistan witnessed a steady decline in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks and reported a positivity rate of 1.69 percent on Tuesday
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s health chief Dr. Faisal Sultan on Tuesday applauded Facebook for partnering with his government to fight misinformation related to the coronavirus pandemic.
“We are appreciative of the support extended by Facebook in our fight against COVID-19,” Pakistan’s information ministry quoted him in one of its statements. “We reached 76 percent of our target population through our social media messaging campaigns.”
Sultan said the pandemic had highlighted the importance of employing digital tools to transmit critical health information to citizens and keeping them safe and healthy.
“A campaign to create awareness about spotting COVID-related misinformation on social media was also launched in Urdu for the Facebook community in Pakistan in partnership with the Ministry of Information’s Digital Media Wing,” the statement continued.
An official handout informed that over 32 million people in Pakistan received authoritative information related to the prevention of the debilitating respiratory disease along with the importance of vaccination through social media messaging campaigns which are carried out by the health ministry in partnership with Facebook.
“We appreciate the hard work put in by the Ministry of Health and the Digital Media Wing of the Government of Pakistan in bringing together an engaging campaign in partnership with Facebook,” said information minister Fawad Chaudhry in a statement.
“Since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, Facebook removed more than 16 million pieces of content from Facebook and Instagram globally for violations against our policies on COVID-19-related misinformation and harm,” the statement added.
In recent weeks, Pakistan has witnessed a steady decline in COVID-19 cases and positivity ratio.
The country reported the lowest coronavirus positivity rate of 1.69 percent on Tuesday since the beginning of the third wave of pandemic in March this year.
According to the official statistics, 663 people tested positive for the disease and 27 deaths were reported on Tuesday, taking the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases since the emergence of the disease in the country to 949,838 with 22,034 fatalities.