The Health Department had to face a minor embarrassment in the social media when it had to temporarily freeze the operations of its official Facebook page after one of the posts related to the Nipah outbreak kicked up a row.
The post that appeared on Tuesday said: “No new cases were positive today too. It was a big relief to see that the lab results of sister’s (the nurse who died of Nipah infection) children are negative. Everyone was praying ever since it was known that they have been admitted to the hospital with fever. Our prayers have borne fruit.”
However, social media users did not take kindly to what they termed as an “unscientific observation” at a time when the government was trying to contain the outbreak with the best practices in modern medicine.
The police had recently booked cases against self-styled naturopaths who claimed that there was no Nipah outbreak in the State and it was a campaign by the drug mafia.
Subsequently, the post was removed. A message posted by Rajeev Sadanandan, Additional Chief Secretary (Health), said: “This page is not operational as of now as the person who was managing the page voluntarily has regretted his inability to continue. We will resume the postings and monitoring your inputs as soon as we engage some one to manage the page. The inconvenience is regretted.”
