We missed this discussion questions in the forum last week and are now contributing belatedly.
Social media has had no impact on trials in our site so far, basically because of the literacy level of our participants and that the majority of them do not own smart phones.
We have on one occasion experienced sensational adverse coverage by the media. A couple was informed that their two daughters were in our site to “sell blood”. They live 12km away from the site they quickly came and created a scene at our gate attracting a huge crowd including the press. They proceeded to the local police station and reported that their under age daughters were bled to death in our site.
The police accompanied them and established that the daughters had come to inquire whether the could participate in one of our trials, that they were aged 20 and 22years were well and had not even consented to participate and that they both had children. The following day press ran sensational report POLICE STORM A US MILITARY RESEARCH FACILITY subsequent to this we called an urgent CAB meeting where we gave them the true and clear picture of the situation. They then convened a meeting with all local community leaders, and all national and local media houses represented. The correct information was given and time was given to answer questions.
As a result of this training we have now learned that there is need to give communication training to the CAB and site staff so that together we can all develop the site’s Communication plan.
We do not engage with media as general practice though we work with them to in Planing the World AIDS Vaccines awareness Day and World AIDS Day, where we use the international Athletic star who come from the region to participate in competitive races to mobilize the community. We also use the WAVD as our site open day when the public including the media can tour our facilities
