Unrelated video shared, claiming that children in Guinea died after taking corona virus trial vaccine.
Claim: A video has been going viral with the claim that children in Guinea died after corona virus trial vaccine was tested on them. The woman in the video says, vaccine trials have already started and deaths are already occurring as a result. The video has been extensively shared on Facebook and YouTube. The woman states in the video that two children died in Dubreka, Guinea after receiving vaccines from French doctors. She shows an extract from a TV news report that is used to support the claim she made. She also refers to two French scientists who made controversial statements last month after discussing the idea of testing a vaccine for corona virus in Africa.
The video has been shared by multiple accounts on Facebook.
YouTube
The videos were also shared on YouTube and received a lot of viewership.
Truth
Upon reverse image search and key word search it was found that the incident is not true. It is not a video of corona virus trial vaccines gone wrong.
It is an incident from 2019. Articles were found that were titled “Guinea: a bad vaccination campaign” and “Panic in Dubréka: many students pass out after a “vaccination””. In the incident several children fainted and some became unconscious after consuming medicines given at a school. None of the news articles claim children dying from the pills. All reports include children “fainted”, “fell unconscious”, “vomited” or even “fell into a coma”.
AFP searched the Guinean health ministry’s website and found a press release from March 19, 2019, which confirms the children were given praziquantel, a drug to treat schistosomiasis, a parasite transmitted by freshwater snails in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Praziquantel is recommended as a safe and effective treatment for schistosomiasis by the World Health Organisation. It has side effects like vomiting, nausea, headache and dizziness. In a press conference (in French) on March 20, 2019, Guinea’s then-Health Minister Édouard Niankoye Lama recognised a “lack of information” about the correct way to take the drug, which he said should be taken after meals.
AFP found a video of the whole TV report in full, with the logo “Gangan News” in the bottom-left corner. According to the full report found on Gangan RTV’S official Facebook Page, three teenage girls were rushed to hospital after taking pills given out by health workers, stirring panic among locals who started protesting. A man interviewed (35 seconds in) says that “all the children who took the pill fell ill and two of them died.” However, a local government representative (2 minutes in) says there were no deaths.”There’s been a lot of disinformation around this. People have been talking about deaths. To my knowledge, at this time, we haven’t had a single death,” Almamy Aly Camara, secretary-general of local communities in Dubreka, told the Gangan News reporter.
Thus it is proved that this wasn’t a case of corona virus vaccine testing gone wrong. The corona virus pandemic has bought a big wave of fake news with it, this one being one example of the many.
Given below are the articles found on the incident.
Source: Guinee Press
Source: Africaguinee.com
Attached below is the video news report AFP found by Gangan RTV
Source: Gangan RTV
This is the screenshot and link on the same claim that AFP debunked.
Source: AFP
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