WHO Health Emergencies Programme, WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, Cairo, Egypt
WHO Health Emergencies Programme, WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, Cairo, Egypt.
BMJ Glob Health. 2022 Jun;7(Suppl 4). doi: 10.1136/bmjgh-2022-008759.
Social media platforms are a massive source of information being used for monitoring and detecting various actual events such as natural disasters and disease outbreaks. This paper aims to present the experience of WHO, Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean in using social media for the detection and monitoring of COVD-19 pandemic alongside the other event-based surveillance tools. Over the period of 29 January 2020 to 31 May 2021, information was collected from social media and other media outlets (web news) as being the source of health information for early detecting and monitoring the situation of COVID-19 events. Signals were categorised into new events and event updates; where event updates captured from social media were categorised into official and unofficial. A total of 10 160 COVID-19 information were captured, out of which 95.8% (n=9732) were detected through social media. None of the information captured were discarded. 50.0% (n=11) of the COVID-19 events in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) were primarily captured from social media compared with 4.5% (n=1) primarily captured from other media outlets. Almost all (99.4%) of the event updates captured from social media were official updates. Real-time, transparent and relevant information posted on different social media platforms, especially the governmental official social media accounts, strengthened the early detection and follow-up of public health events in the EMR, especially during the current COVID-19 pandemic.
社交媒体平台是一个巨大的信息来源，用于监测和发现各种实际事件，如自然灾害和疾病爆发。本文旨在介绍世界卫生组织（世卫组织）、东地中海区域办事处（东地中海区域办事处）在使用社交媒体检测和监测 COVID-19 大流行以及其他基于事件的监测工具方面的经验。在 2020 年 1 月 29 日至 2021 年 5 月 31 日期间，从社交媒体和其他媒体（网络新闻）收集信息，作为早期发现和监测 COVID-19 事件的健康信息来源。信号被分为新事件和事件更新；从社交媒体捕捉到的事件更新分为官方和非官方。共捕捉到 10160 条 COVID-19 信息，其中 95.8%（n=9732）通过社交媒体检测到。没有一条信息被丢弃。东地中海区域（EMR）的 COVID-19 事件中，有 50.0%（n=11）主要通过社交媒体捕捉，而只有 4.5%（n=1）主要通过其他媒体捕捉。从社交媒体捕捉到的几乎所有（99.4%）事件更新都是官方更新。不同社交媒体平台上发布的实时、透明和相关信息，特别是政府官方社交媒体账户，加强了东地中海区域公共卫生事件的早期发现和后续行动，特别是在当前 COVID-19 大流行期间。
