Down with Western Vaccines! Up with Glorious Sputnik5!

 

For years now Russia has been running Soviet-style dysinformatzia campaigns on people in the West, especially the United States. During the 2016 election, they promoted ads on Facebook designed to inflame both sides of just about any controversial issue, just to get us good and pissed off.

Now they're doing a similar thing with vaccines. The New York Times ran a story yesterday exposing a propaganda operation by Russia to spread negative disinformation about vaccines produced in the West, and promote a positive image of their Sputnik 5 vaccine. 

The efforts target Central and South American countries, particularly Mexico and Brazil, which are only now ramping-up vaccine purchases for their populations. “Every negative story or issue that has come out about a U.S.-made vaccine is amplified, while they flood the zone with any positive report about the Russian vaccine,” said a researcher quoted in the story. 

They are supporting these efforts with social media posts by their embassies, especially the one in Mexico, as well as state-run media outlets like the Sputnik Spanish language edition. Researchers report similar campaigns in Easter Europe.

This is all pretty cheeky considering that Russia raced to approve the vaccine this summer before clinical trials were completed (they are still not completed).  Russian President Putin had his daughter vaccinated in August, but said nyet to a shot himself. As of December he had still not gotten around to getting vaccinated. He said he would get the vaccine "when he could." Big vote of confidence for superior Russian vaccine!

China is playing the same game with its Sinovac vaccine. That's pretty cheeky too, given that their vaccine has proven only 50% effective in Brazil.

Both countries are doing this not just to make money selling the vaccine but to gain influence in regions they are targeting. It is a form of public diplomacy at best, or grey zone conflict at worst. 

Perhaps the dysinformatzia is working. In the NYT yesterday there also appeared an Op-Ed co-authored by an Indian public health activist and a Malaysian lawyer arguing that it's time we give Sputnik5 and Sinovac a little love.    

Image by press 👍 and ⭐ from Pixabay modified by Corona-zona

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