The health officials were racing against the clock. Doses of the coronavirus vaccine had to reach Sabang, a city on the mountainous Weh Island in the Andaman Sea, by that afternoon.

Spreading at least as quickly as the COVID-19 virus, an ‘infodemic’ has infected large swaths of media and information exchange across ASEAN. Massive amounts of information, including rumours, misinformation and disinformation have reached millions of people who are hoping to understand how to stay safe until the pandemic has been controlled.

Philippine lawmaker Sarah Elago faces a daily barrage of Facebook posts linking her to communist rebels trying to overthrow the government.

Facebook on Monday said it is ramping up efforts to stem the spread of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, spread facts, and figure out who might be wary of getting the jab.The move includes banning groups that repeatedly spread misinformation and debunked claims about the virus and vaccines in general.The leading social network has been highlighting health advice from reliable agencies and removing COVID-19 misinformation for months and on Monday expanded that initiative.A list of debunk

As early as February, with the global pandemic spreading fast, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a warning about an "infodemic," a wave of fake news and misinformation about the deadly new disease on social media.Now with hopes hanging on COVID-19 vaccines, the WHO and experts are warning those same phenomena may jeopardise roll-out of immunisation programmes meant to bring an end to the suffering."The coronavirus disease is the first pandemic in history in which techn

A recent poll found that one in three Americans would not be willing to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, while anti-vaxxers have reportedly gained at least 7.8 million new social media followers since 2019. Like the pandemic itself, anti-vax misinformation and rumours know no borders.

Online misinformation is leaching out from cheap mobile phones and free Facebook plans used by millions in the Philippines, convincing many to reject vaccinations for polio and other deadly diseases.Childhood immunisation rates have plummeted in the country - from 87 percent in 2014 to 68 percent - resulting in a measles epidemic and the re-emergence of polio last year.A highly politicised campaign that led to the withdrawal of dengue vaccine Dengvaxia in 2017 is widely seen as one of the mai

United States (US) President Donald Trump has been the world's biggest driver of COVID-19 misinformation during the pandemic, a study from Cornell University said Thursday.A team from the Cornell Alliance for Science evaluated 38 million articles published by English-language, traditional media worldwide between 1 January and 26 May of this year.The database they used aggregates coverage from countries such as the US, Britain, India, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and other African and

Even before the pandemic, Filipinos have long realised the importance of information communication technologies (ICTs) such as personal and networked computers, mobile telephones, the internet and emails, including social media platforms (i.e. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linked, etc.).

In the wake of the coronavirus crisis, people are spending more time online with their devices to entertain themselves and to get COVID-19 updates during quarantine or virus lockdowns. An estimated 4.66 billion people now use the internet – more than half of humanity. This is an increase of more than seven percent since this time last year.