In a bid to stem the rapid spread of covid-19 misinformation, social media messaging App, WhatsApp has placed new limits on the number of times a forwarded message can be shared simultaneously.

With immediate effect, any message received by a person on the viral platform that has already been forwarded five times can now only be passed on to one chat at a time, the company announced.

"We've seen a significant increase in the amount of forwarding which users have told us can feel overwhelming and can contribute to the spread of misinformation. We believe it's important to slow the spread of these messages down to keep WhatsApp a place for personal conversation." WhatsApp said in a blog post published last week.

The new limits are WhatsApp's strictest yet.

WhatsApp has long been plagued by misinformation, but the ease with which its group chats and forwarding capabilities can be used to spread such content has been magnified by the coronavirus pandemic.

As opposed to the other social media platforms such as, Facebook or Instagram, WhatsApp fully encrypts its messages.

This means that the company has no idea what's being said or shared. And unlike Facebook, it does not have the capability to attach a warning and explanation to posts deemed false by fact checkers.

However, like other text messaging platforms, the company has been used in recent months to spread messages that often contain a mixture of claims about the pandemic, some accurate and some that have been discredited by medical experts.

The emerging concerns have since attracted health experts urging people to stop sharing unverified information using the app.

Similarly Rwanda has cautioned the public to showcase discipline and avoid unnecessary panic.

As it stands, more than 1,854,460 cases have been confirmed, while a total of 114,331 patients have lost their lives in 185 countries across the globe.