Russian And China’s Disinformation Campaign Could Have Affected Spain’s Vaccine Choice

Russian And China’s Disinformation Campaign Could Have Affected Spain’s Vaccine Choice.

WERE you worried about receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine due to reports of blood clots? then you, like the rest of Europe, could be the victim of a massive disinformation campaign allegedly being run by Russia and China set up to undermine confidence in the drug thereby pointing administrations to look at their two drugs instead.

Spain followed the lead of Denmark, Norway, Iceland, the Netherlands, and Ireland and temporarily suspended the administration of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine in March. All this stalled the vaccination campaign and it’s just one of the reasons that the UK stole the march on the rest of Europe.

A new EU report found that Moscow and Beijing are seeking to undermine trust in Western coronavirus vaccines while intensely promoting their own brands.

China and Russia are engaging in campaigns to erode trust in the European Union’s coronavirus strategy as well as gin up skepticism of Western-developed coronavirus vaccines, the EU’s foreign service said in a report published Wednesday, April, 28.

The damning report also raised concerns that the countries are using these efforts to particularly exert influence on the Western Balkans.

The findings stem from a report published by the EU External Action Service (EEAS) on disinformation concerning the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to the report, ‘state-sponsored disinformation’ efforts have intensified since the beginning of 2021, as vaccine rollouts have started to pick up pace around the world.

During December 2020 and the first quarter of 2021, the Russian campaign to promote the Sputnik V vaccine has accelerated and developed into a whole-of-government approach including state authorities, state companies and state mass media in almost daily interventions.

Russian officials not only promote the Sputnik V vaccine but also engage in antagonistic messaging, using disinformation to accuse the West and the EU of sabotaging the Russian vaccine. The EU and NATO regularly accuse Russia of covert action, including disinformation, to try to destabilise the West by exploiting divisions in society.

“A disinformation report that has no factual basis is in itself an example of disinformation,” the Chinese mission to the EU said in a statement dated Thursday in response to the report. Russia denies any such tactics and President Vladimir Putin has accused foreign foes of targeting Russia by spreading fake news about the coronavirus.

Source: Rueters