​Rofhiwa Marubini 
Government is working tirelessly to deal with dangers of fake news in the fight against COVID-19 and the vaccination plan. 
Higher Education, Science and Innovation Minister, Dr Blade Nzimande, believes that while social media is beneficial for communicating, it can be easily hijacked to spread false claims about inoculation.
"What complicates the fight against COVID-19 is that while people are facing the real threat of losing their lives, fake news and misinformation are causing them to be paranoid, and to doubt the usefulness of vaccines and other public health interventions," said Nzimande.
Nzimande was speaking during a virtual conference aimed at dispelling myths about COVID-19 vaccines and Coronavirus variants.  He  said the discussion underscored the urgency with which government was responding to the pandemic.  
These myths vary from a belief that vaccines can change one's DNA, vaccines contain a form of microchip, they have the mark of the beast and that big businesses are pushing vaccines to improve profits. 
These myths have been proven to be untrue as a number of countries have been  administering COVID-19 vaccines to reduce  serious illnesses  death.   
"The current environment is fraught with all manner of conspiracy theories that often result in poor decision-making at both individual and group level," he said
He also noted that in some parts of the country 5G cell-phone towers have been destroyed as people believed they have caused COVID-19.  
"The public must be informed that the COVID-19 virus is purely biological and has no roots in any Fourth Industrial Revolution technology like 5G," he said.
According to the Department of Health, no steps have been skipped in the development, testing or ratification of the COVID-19 vaccines.