| schema:text
| - Fact Check: Blood clot the main reason for Covid-19 death, claims conspiracy theory
Have Italian doctors discovered such a secret about the coronavirus crisis that they dared to discard World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines?
Listen to Story
India Today Fact Check
Respiratory failure is the leading cause of death for Covid-19 patients. Antibiotics are not effective against coronavirus, but only against collateral bacterial infections.
Have Italian doctors discovered such a secret about the coronavirus crisis that they dared to discard World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines?
An Internet article on Covid-19 claims that Italian doctors have found that WHO has hatched a conspiracy to mislead people about the disease, vaccinate everyone and reduce world population. The article has multiple claims regarding treatments, nature of the disease, its origin and root cause of death.
Among other claims, the article says coronavirus is not a virus but bacteria, and antibiotics can cure Covid-19. It also says that the major cause of death in Covid-19 is thrombosis or blood clot and not pneumonia. It further says that intensive care units and ventilators are never needed to treat Covid-19 patients. Similar contents have been shared on Facebook and WhatsApp too.
The archived versions of the post and viral article can be seen here and here.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) looked into the multiple claims made in the viral article and found most of them to be misleading. Here are the viral claims and facts we found against them.
Claim 1
Coronavirus is not a virus but bacteria that cause death. Anti-inflammatory drugs and antibiotics can cure Covid-19.
Fact
Senior medical practitioners have brushed aside the claim as fake news.
Calling this an “IDIOT syndrome”, Dr Sharad Joshi, senior pulmonologist at Max Hospital, says, “Here, IDIOT stands for Internet derived information obstructing treatment. Social media information is misleading people.”
To clear confusion whether it is a virus or bacteria, one can refer to the Lancet study on genomic characterisation and epidemiology of the new coronavirus.
Role of antibiotics in corona treatment
India Today spoke to Dr Suresh Kumar, director of Delhi’s LNJP hospital, who said, “Scientifically speaking, there is no role of antibiotics in treating coronavirus, but these antibiotics are administered to resist secondary or collateral bacterial infections.”
Dr Joshi of Max Hospital explains, “Covid is a viral infection. Secondary bacterial infection, Sepsis, and DIC is well-established complication even in all viral diseases. We should not change treatment protocols until scientific societies and authorities advise.”
Hence, it is clear that antibiotics are given to Covid-19 patients to resist secondary bacterial infections that can coexist with coronavirus. These antibiotics are not effective against the novel coronavirus.
Claim 2
The major cause of death in Covid-19 is thrombosis or blood clot and not pneumonia.
Fact
As per several leading science journals and scientific studies, thrombosis or coagulation of blood cells or blood clots is a frequent complication found in Covid-19 patients.
Studies from the Netherlands and France suggest that clots form in 20-30 per cent of critically ill Covid-19 patients.
This is why WHO has also recommended the use of low-molecular-weight heparin in clinical management of patients suspected of being affected by Covid-19 to prevent complications related to “venous thromboembolism”.
According to Dr Kumar of LNJP, “There is no research study available in India in this regard. Death of Covid-19 patients due to thrombosis is less than 20 per cent these are patients suffering from multi-organ failure and renal shutdown in ICU setting.”
Dr Joshi of Max Hospital also confirmed that “doctors have also reported thrombosis complications in Covid-19 patients and treatment to that (thrombosis) is given on a case-to-case basis this cannot be a blanket treatment to all corona cases”.
However, there is no scientific evidence that says thrombosis is the major cause of death for Covid-19 patients or anticoagulant drugs are the only medicine for treating coronavirus patients.
On the contrary, according to a Lancet article, respiratory failure has been found to be the leading cause of death for coronavirus patients.
Claim 3
Ventilators and intensive care units are never needed to treat Covid-19 patients.
Fact
According to all senior medical practitioners, Covid-19 patients with critical respiratory illness or multi-organ or renal failure are often treated in ICU and ventilators. But not all coronavirus patients require ICU and ventilators.
Sergio Harari, director of the Pneumology Operative Unit of San Giuseppe Hospital in Milan, Italy, said in an interview to Italian newspaper “Corriere della Sera”, “Most deaths are due to interstitial pneumonia and respiratory failure. To say that patients should not be intubated is totally out of the question.”
An unreliable source
The viral article, published by the website “Medium”, was originally taken from a Nigerian website called “Efogator.com”.
The Nigerian website is mostly known for gossip stories. This website, in its section “Terms of Use”, has mentioned that they do not take responsibility for any error in the content. Hence, it is clear that the viral story has been picked from a very unreliable source.
Conclusion
So it can be concluded that this viral but vague conspiracy theory about WHO misleading doctors in treating coronavirus to control world population is false and claims made in the viral article are also misleading.
READ | Fact Check: Old videos of supermarket thefts go viral linking them to Ramadan
Please share it on our at 73 7000 7000
You can also send us an email at factcheck@intoday.com
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)