hinking of an active mobilisation for epidemic preparedness among the faith-based communities might take us to Egypt, the most populated Arab Muslim country. It is a good case study. The Egyptian Ministry of Religious Affairs worked closely with Al-Azhar, a distinguished Islamic institution, and the Coptic Church to modify religious practices in the face of Covid-19. Together, they made room for voluntary and safe religious services, rites (such as funerals), celebrations and visits to shrines. Once powerful institutions having massive influence and trust over their respective constituents got in, it helped reduce hesitancy among the sceptics to comply with and adopt preventive measures against Corona virus.

The Egyptian case can be a bit distracting for Pakistan because of the government’s absolute monopoly over power there. But the point is that communication is about pro-active messaging, giving public ownership, bringing stakeholders together and making alliances in real terms. It is unlike a situation where an aloof government designs its epidemic preparedness programmes at a remote capital and executes those. Nor is it just about using public service messages in the traditional mode of releasing ‘official’ hand-outs. Messaging is an action in its own right. Its effectiveness depends upon the overall design and communication environment it is situated in.

Two key design-level considerations inform the whole preparedness communication. The first and foremost approach is health promotion and prevention aimed at empowering people for control over their health. This approach takes preparedness as a public health issue and increases the health literacy, care and healthy behaviours among the populace. This is neither curative health nor a relief or recovery work. The health promotional and preventive actions may include vaccination, provision of information on behavioural and medical health risks, disease prevention programmes and counselling, nutrition and food supplementation, hygiene education and policies and programmes on risks, etc.

Second, because epidemics are localised and affect people differently on account of geography, gender, class or age groups, the same message does not work for all. For example, a recent study, titled The Impact of Covid-19 on Religious and Social Inequalities by Bargad, a non-governmental organisation, revealed that television has been the major source of information on Covid-19 for 71.9 percent people who could access news through television. Information received from friends and relatives and newspapers followed, respectively, 22.7 percent and 21.1 percent. Other people became aware of the situations through various websites, radio etc. Social media as a source of information is quite sizable at 16.4 percent. The Christian and Muslim populations got information from the same resources but at different ratios. It is noteworthy that the study was done in the suburbs of Lahore. It is hard to hold that the largest media source would remain television in a rural setting.

Another study, titled Assessment of general awareness among Pakistani students regarding COVID-19 outbreak (by Tanveer Hussain and others) found a satisfactory level of awareness and positive attitude of students towards Covid-19 precautionary practices. It claimed substantial awareness resulting from public awareness campaigns under the National Action Plan for Covid-19. The populations of this study were university students. It is not clear if the results or perceptions would hold in another population.

This is to argue that epidemics are local. They hit different groups and areas differently so that before designing communicative actions there has to be ample mapping of the population and information available about their health situation, needs and vulnerabilities.

If we scan the National Action Plan for Corona Virus Disease (Covid-19) Pakistan, a reference document of the Government of Pakistan, through the lens of the above two approaches we can see that its section on risk communication enlists 13 key points ranging from functional proactive media engagement to projection of positive response/ actions, neutralising negative news, community engagement, value inculcation, education, planning and SOPs, training, guidelines, etc. The key concept that runs through the official document is ‘awareness’, as in guiding the people. It, however, remains shy on thinking about the people it is dealing with. This type of approach presumes all Pakistanis to be similar and might not deliver the message according to communication needs of different groups and regions.

According to experts, the present official approaches on epidemics and disasters are still stuck with risk relief and reactive modes. This is also evident from staffing and recruitment of the military personnel who are good at relief and logistic activities but not the preparedness work. Preparedness is an ongoing process. It needs to be aligned with regular planning and execution work at the federal, provincial and district levels. Likewise, sole dependence on doctors would translate into curative enterprise. It would reduce the scope of public health interventions that require a broader coalition of experts and sectors to pool in their resources working under the lead of civil bureaucrats.

As for developing the actual communication and messaging, we have to pronounce that the public service messages should (i) use research on selection of channels and audience; (ii) be pre-tested and piloted on sample populations until the right messages are finalised; (iii) understand and reach out to people from different cultures, languages, socio-economic backgrounds and vulnerability levels; (iv) take note of health literacy, digital access, media exposure and cultural considerations; (v) communicate appropriate, affordable, tangible and clear messages that are close to everyday practices of the intended audience; and (vi) be monitored and evaluated on a regular basis so that a systemic memory of lessons learnt, failures and good practices is created for future use.

The writer is a youth and social development consultant. He can be reached at iqbutt@yahoo.com