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Ignore claim Uganda’s health ministry ‘worried about rapid Covid-19 infections among vaccinated people’ – screenshot photoshopped

On 21 June, Uganda’s health ministry tweeted the screenshot, stamped “FAKE NEWS”.

A screenshot of what seems to be a Facebook post claiming Uganda’s health minister was “worried about rapid infection of Covid-19 among the #Vaccinated people” has been widely shared. 

The screenshot includes a screengrab apparently from an NBS broadcast. NBS is a Ugandan TV station. It shows Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, the country’s health minister, and text that reads: “MOH worried about infections among vaccinated people.”

The text in the shared Facebook post claims the health ministry has said that vaccinated people are “infected quickly and it's difficult for them to get healed”. 

The post ends: “It's time for us Trust Only God to protect us from Covid 19.”

The screenshot was shared on 22 June 2021 on a Facebook page with more than 20,000 followers

NBS posted a story on 17 June with the same image of the health minister. It quoted her as saying she was worried about the number of Covid-19 cases among the vaccinated population. She urged those vaccinated to continue “observing the standard operating procedures” to contain the virus’s spread.

But did NBS attribute the “difficult for vaccinated people to heal” statement to the health minister? We checked.

UgandaVaccine_Fake

Vaccination prevents severe disease, death – health minister

A Google reverse image search led us to a video of Aceng addressing the public on Covid-19 vaccination myths. This is clearly where the NBS screengrab is from.

In the video, Aceng says: “There is no one who has been vaccinated and fell down and died. That is impossible. It has not happened unless you get what we call an anaphylactic shock which has not happened with this vaccine.”

She did say that “there are instances where after vaccination people have tested positive for Covid”. But this was not because of the vaccine. Vaccination, she said, doesn’t stop infection, but prevents severe disease and hospitalisation.

She did not say anything like “it is difficult for vaccinated people to heal”.

“If vaccinated people do get sick, they are likely to have milder symptoms, in general. It is very rare for someone vaccinated to experience severe illness or die,” the World Health Organization confirms.

Post debunked by health ministry

On 21 June, Uganda’s health ministry tweeted the screenshot, stamped “FAKE NEWS”. They asked the public to “disregard this fake news post attributed to the Minister of Health”.

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