Have 'world health experts' warned Zimbabwe over Sinopharm? No, this viral WhatsApp post is a fabrication - ZimFact
Ngoni Mhuruyengwe
February 26, 2021
CLAIM: ‘World health experts’ have warned Zimbabwe against using the Sinopharm vaccine
SOURCE: A viral social media message
VERDICT: FALSE: The message is a fabrication. It cites a website that does not exist and contains false information
A message that has circulated on social media claiming that “world health experts” have warned Zimbabwe over the Sinopharm vaccine is fake.
According to the article, purporting to be sourced from “Blumburgblog.com”: “World Health Experts and immunologists have strongly cautioned the Zimbabwe government in administering the Chinese SINOPHARM vaccine to its citizens. There is a very big probability that tens of thousands of vaccinated people could perish in the process triggering an unprecedented genocide in medical history.”
What are the signs to look for in this post to show that it is all made up?
Firstly, the website cited, “Blumburgblog.com”, does not exist. A quick check on the internet shows this. The name was likely picked deliberately to mimic a credible news source, Bloomberg.
Secondly, the article does not mention a single expert, citing only “reliable sources at World Health Organisation”.
There is also a string of basic factual inaccuracies in the “article”, which a real news outlet would not make. For example, it says, several times, that China has a population of three billion people. China has 1.4 billion people. It also repeatedly refers to a “Sinovax” Chinese vaccine. The real name is Sinovac.
A cross check with other media also shows that no other news site has reported such ‘warnings’ to Zimbabwe.
Another tell-tale sign that this is not a genuine report from a real news source are the many grammatical errors.
Conclusion
This report is a fabrication. No such warning has been issued by the WHO to Zimbabwe, or to any other country, about Sinopharm. The article cites a website that does not exist. It is riddled with basic factual and grammatical errors, which shows it was not written by a genuine news outlet.
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