Abstract
In the field of media and health communication studies, there have been various studies on the nature and danger of virus and infectious diseases in the African continent. However, there is paucity of research investigations on media awareness campaigns for creating awareness of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Africa. This study, therefore, examined the use of media campaigns for the awareness of EVD in Lagos State. For this study, four questions were raised and answered to achieve the stated objectives. Also, this study adopted the survey design, which made use of the questionnaire for data collection. Furthermore, the multi-stage sampling technique was used to select a sample size of 400 respondents across two local government areas (Surulere and Ikeja) in Lagos State. The findings indicated that 71.2 per cent of respondents had adequate knowledge of the disease. Also, a significant majority of the respondents engaged in anti-Ebola health practices as a result of positive impact of media campaigns geared towards creating awareness of EVD. The result shows that there is a strong link between the anti-Ebola health practices and the fear of the disease. This study recommends that programmes geared towards awareness of the EVD and other infectious diseases should be done intermittently so as to help avoid an outbreak in the future.
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