AFP México

No, this woman did not give birth to 11 babies — but she did give birth to eight

Published on 12 April 2019 at 11:32

A Facebook post with more than 21,000 shares purports to show images of a woman who gave birth to eleven babies. The claim uses two misleading images as evidence — one showing the famous American “Octomom” who gave birth to eight babies in 2009, and the other showing eleven babies born on the same day in India, to different mothers.

No, this photo does not show a Zambian nurse who swapped thousands of babies

Published on 10 April 2019 at 16:00Updated on 12 April 2019 at 10:01

Articles shared thousands of times on Facebook claim a Zambian nurse named Elizabeth Mwewa swapped around 5,000 babies “for fun” in a maternity ward in Lusaka. The claim is false; the General Nursing Council of Zambia says she doesn’t exist.

No, this is not a photo of a member of a migrant caravan to the US infected with smallpox

Published on 10 April 2019 at 00:10

A photo shared on Facebook allegedly depicts a member of a migrant caravan found at the United States border to be infected with smallpox. The man in the photo did cross the US southern border irregularly, but in 2014, not as a member of a caravan of Central Americans who made the journey across Mexico to reach the US in 2018 and 2019. He was not infected with smallpox; smallpox was officially declared eradicated by the World Health Organization in 1980.

No, this photo does not show a child’s heart infected with parasites

Published on 25 March 2019 at 09:05Updated on 25 March 2019 at 09:05

A photo of a worm-infested heart has been shared tens of thousands of times in Facebook posts that claim it belonged to a child who died after he caught the parasites through contact with a pet dog. The claim is false; the photo shows a dog’s heart, not a human heart, and experts say the disease is not fatal for humans.

No, this 'giant' turtle was not beached in Mexico or Brazil

Published on 1 March 2019 at 22:29

A video of a large sea turtle dragging itself on a beach towards the sea has been shared hundreds of thousands of times in multiple languages on social media. Several publications assure that the scene was captured in Mexico, another that the event took place in Brazil. Although these images of a leatherback sea turtle are real, they were actually captured on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe.

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