The Limpopo Health Department has warned people to be vigilant of bogus researchers who are collecting blood samples from the community under the guise of COVID-19 research.
The Department says some are also claiming to want to vaccinate the community against COVID-19.
Spokesperson for the Department Neil Shikwambana says people must notify the police of anyone claiming to be Health Department officials conducting such research.
“We don’t know from our side how far these people have gone. We don’t know which other communities have done this. It would be prudent for us to warn community members that if people come under the guise of the Department, conducting any kind of research on COVID-19 or vaccinating people, they will not be coming from us and people should be extra vigilant.”
Shikwambana says, “If anything, they can call the police because when there are external individuals conducting research, they will come through us for clearance and we would know. But these ones we don’t know, to us they are bogus and we don’t know what their intentions are – if anything they might be dangerous to the community.”
In the audio below, Shikwambana talks about the bogus COVID-19 researchers:
