A report published in ‘Kenya Trending News’ claims that 21 people infected with COVID-19 have been confirmed dead in a private hospital in Lagos after being administered with a COVID-19 vaccine.
Headline by Kenya Trending News
The publication reported that the 21 infected people died barely six hours after the vaccines were administered in a private hospital in Lagos State. No such incident has been recorded or reported in Nigeria.
On April 5, 2020, the day the report was published, Nigeria confirmed 210 cases of COVID-19 infections and the total number of reported deaths from the disease were 4.
By April 15, Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Health and the the country’s Centre for Disease Control, NCDC disclosed that the number of people infected had risen to 407, with 128 having recovered and while 12 had succumbed to the disease.
The report did not name the private hospital in Lagos where the incident is alleged to have taken place.
The picture used by ‘Kenya Trending News’ to illustrate the article has no connection with the report. It was first published on April 4 by Reuters, in an article titled “Trump: ‘Going to be a lot of death’ in U.S. next week from coronavirus”.
‘Kenya Trending News’ linked their report to the scandal surrounding suggestions made by two French doctors that the first human vaccine trials for COVID-19 be carried out in Africa.
However, the World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed that there is no vaccine for COVID-19, the disease caused by a new strain of coronavirus which has not been previously found in humans. According to WHO, there is also no specific medication for treatment for the disease at the moment. Currently, two vaccines are at clinical trial stage while 42 others are at the preclinical stage of evaluation.
There is also no scientific evidence to support the suggestion that Africans have genetic immunity to the virus as was recently debunked in a report by PesaCheck.
As reported by WHO, the “infodemic” of false coronavirus claims on COVID-19 is critical and requires constant attention to ensure that people are accurately informed.
PesaCheck has looked into the claim that 21 people died in Lagos, Nigeria after being given a COVID-19 vaccine and found it to be FALSE.
…..
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organizations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake news or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by WanaData Member, Blessing Oladunjoye and edited by PesaCheck News Editor Enock Nyariki.
The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck Managing Editor Eric Mugendi.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water/sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.