Ministers are looking at ways to counter the influence of anti-vaxxers on social media because they fear some of their more strident claims – that Africans are being used as guinea pigs – are putting ethnic minorities off having the Covid-19 vaccines. 

Government and NHS health officials are deeply concerned at the speed at which disinformation is now flooding social media sites such as WhatsApp and Facebook, and that these viral videos are having a particularly disproportionate impact on some ethnic communities. 

Health officials and social workers are already working closely with minority ethnic and religious community groups around the country in an effort to discuss directly with them why such a large proportion have such deep misgivings about the vaccines.Â