Participant Quotes Regarding Rumor Identification From Interviews on Organizational Response to Rumors During the 2014–2016 Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak in Liberia and Sierra Leone
| Theme | Quotation |
|---|---|
| Formal System – Community Level Worker Network | You know, we had a network of … over 10,000 people. If you put the religious leaders, the social mobilizers, the traditional healers together that we are working with … With the social mobilizers, we had we developed a system of communication. … On a daily basis the mobilizers were able to share … rumors. The things we hear from the communities as they [were] engaging the community … So we are getting those. I will not say close to real time, but on a daily basis we are able to actually collect that information. —Local staff, Sierra Leone |
| We would work with Community Health volunteers who would send via [short messaging system] the specific rumor that they heard and that would track the [global positioning system] coordinates. And so then what would happen is we could say ‘okay, this 1 specific rumor came from this specific village on this specific day,’ and then we could alert our social mobilizers as well as the Ministry contacts that we had about that specific rumor. —International staff, Liberia | |
| Formal System – Mass Media | That was a separate pillar that was led that was co-led by the Ministry of Information and they really … were more responsible for gathering some of that misinformation that was spreading … through the media, through … some of those channels. And so both that pillar, and the social mobilization pillar would bring that information to those daily Situation Room meetings where it was discussed then with the wider … response teams. —International staff, Liberia and Sierra Leone |
| Informal System | I mean it was it was an everyday thing where … I mean most of the time when I would do the work, people would confront us and talk to us about these rumors. And, you know. But we knew exactly what it is. And then we knew where the rumors came from. —Local staff, Liberia |
| System to Identify Ebola Virus Disease Case Rumors | The rumors … [we] will get the call from community-level. At times they too come from stakeholders [and] at times it will come from our partners that were working with the [nongovernmental organizations]. They will bring the information to us and then we would investigate the rumors and then if it is true then we do investigation and then if necessary, we can collect samples. —Local staff, Sierra Leone |
| [It] …was like, ‘Oh if you hear that there is Ebola, you need to report to authorities.’ There was even a toll-free line where you could call … so that a response team could come and address to that case. —International staff, Sierra Leone |