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| - Last Updated on October 16, 2024 by Nivedita
Quick Take
A number of social media users have shared a video showing school students running out. The claim that goes around with the video goes as it is a video from Nigeria in January 2021 where students are running away from the vaccines. We fact-checked and found that the claim is false.
The Claim
“Pupils in Nigeria running away from being vaccinated against covid19 vaccine,” writes one of the users who shared the video. Many of the users have posted this as early as January 2021. Such posts can be seen here, and here.
Fact Check
The video was shared by users in January 2021. However, Nigeria did not have Covid-19 vaccines till March 2021. In February 2021, Nigeria’s Center for Disease Control tweeted to inform that the country still doesn’t have Covid-19 vaccines.
We tried tracking the origin of the video. We found that the video was shared online since May 2019, much before the Coronavirus pandemic started. Finally, we could locate the source of the video to a news item of May 26, 2021, where a Nigerian student had brought a tear gas canister to school, and it exploded when he was showing it to friends. The explosion caused panic and several injured. The video in circulation was related to that event and had nothing to do with vaccinations.
Concerns about vaccination responses are not limited to Nigeria; similar sentiments have emerged in various countries. For instance, a recent protest against vaccination in Italy highlights how misinformation can fuel public anxiety about vaccines.
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