Johannesburg - The Gauteng Department of Health has dismissed the "malicious" information on social media that claims there is an official correspondence advising communities not to drink tap water.
Amid a cholera outbreak that claimed one life in Gauteng, there are social media messages claiming that people should not drink tap water.
"The Gauteng Department of Health would like to categorically distance itself and dismiss the malicious information that has been circulating on social media platforms that claims that there is a communiqué that has been issued to say people should not drink the tap water," the departmental spokesperson Motalatale Modiba said on Tuesday.
"This information is far from the truth. The information shared by these unknown sources."
The department said the information has no scientific evidence and is not an official communication of any government entity.
"We want to assure the public that tap water remains safe for drinking. However, we are urging people to continue practising proper hand hygiene and not to drink water from contaminated sources," Modiba said.
The department said contaminated sources include drinking water from unclean environmental sources such as rivers, streams, boreholes, dams, and those that also don't have adequate sanitation.
"We are advising the public to be extra cautious, given that one of the main ways in which cholera gets transmitted is through contaminated or polluted water sources, but it also spreads when people handle food without maintaining proper hand hygiene," Modiba said.
The department said it wants to reiterate to the public that it's safer to actually get information from official sources.
"The safest thing for them to do is to actually double check, and the quickest way to double check is to go on to our different social media platforms," Modiba said.
"Caution again that people should not fall prey to false information that circulates only to scare people and spread fear among the people."
The Star