A health worker receives a Covid-19 vaccine in Karachi on March 2, 2021 ( AFP / RIZWAN TABASSUM)

False reports of children 'killed' in Pakistan vaccine drive use old video

This article is more than one year old.
Published on October 25, 2021 at 06:42
2 min read
By Wasi MIRZA, AFP Pakistan

Facebook posts circulating in Pakistan purport to show a video of a vaccination drive at a school where "six students died on the spot". The claim is false; the video has circulated since 2019 in reports about a typhoid vaccination drive in Karachi where children were hospitalised and later discharged.

The video, which shows crowds scrambling around an ambulance, was shared on Facebook on October 21.

"Yesterday morning, six students from White House Grammar School, which is near Sohrab Goth, died on the spot due to getting the vaccine and many others are in grave condition," the Urdu-language post reads.

Screenshot of the post falsely claiming to show a vaccination drive at a Pakistani school in 2021. Taken on October 22, 2021. ( AFP / )

The video was shared in similar posts on Facebook here, here and here and on Twitter here, here and here.

However, the claim is false.

A reverse image search found a video with similar scenes posted here on Twitter on November 18, 2019 by Pakistani media outlet GTV Network.

"In Orangi, Karachi, the condition of many children has deteriorated, allegedly due to the typhoid injection," the tweet reads.

Below is a screenshot comparing scenes from the video shared in misleading posts (left) and by GTV Network in 2019 (right).

Screenshot comparing footage from the videos claiming to show a vaccination drive in October 2021 (left) and the report from GTV Network in 2019 (right) ( AFP / )

The full video was also shared in this tweet on November 19, 2019, which said it showed students from White House Grammar School's Orangi Town campus taken to hospital after a typhoid vaccination drive.

Local media reports said the children were later discharged from hospital.

Samaa News quoted Dr Akram Sultan, project director of Sindh province's immunisation programme, as saying that around 24 children were hospitalised and were all discharged.

AFP previously debunked false reports of children dying from vaccines here.

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