Chinese social media platform TikTok has coordinated with Vietnamese authorities to create an account that provides official information on the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic amid widespread fake news about the disease.

TikTok, in coordination with Vietnam’s Ministry of Health and Ministry of Information and Communications, launched the account last week at @ICT_anti_nCoV.

ICT is an acronym for information and communications technology, while nCoV refers to the novel coronavirus.

The information channel has been uploading at least 1-2 videos daily, providing viewers with the latest updates on the COVID-19 epidemic in Vietnam and around the world.

It also gives helpful advice and knowledge regarding the disease.

Each video is about 15-60 seconds long, with the content being based on official information from the Ministry of Health, local-level medical centers, and the World Health Organization.

The more than two dozen videos on @ICT_anti_nCoV have garnered over three million views after only ten days since its launch last week, Nguyen Lam Thanh, a representative of TikTok Vietnam, stated.

It had amassed over 38,000 followers and nearly 200,000 ‘likes’ on the social network as of Thursday afternoon.

“TikTok has also been monitoring all information on the COVID-19 epidemic uploaded by its users to prevent fake news,” Lam added.

COVID-19 has killed over 2,000 people and infected over 76,000 globally since it first surfaced in the Chinese city of Wuhan in Hubei Province in December 2019, according to the South China Morning Post.

Vietnam has so far confirmed 16 cases of the viral infection, including 13 Vietnamese, one Vietnamese American, and two Chinese.

Twelve of them have been released after making a full recovery, with no new cases recorded since Thursday last week.

Many Vietnamese citizens, including a handful of celebrities, have been fined for sharing false news on the COVID-19 epidemic on social media over the past weeks.

TikTok is a video-sharing social networking service owned by ByteDance, a Beijing-based company.

The app was launched in 2017 and has become a big hit not only in China but also in Vietnam and many other countries.

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