This is a stock photo of a patient with a serious skin condition

This article is more than one year old.
Published on March 16, 2020 at 07:25
3 min read
By AFP Sri Lanka

A photo of a person covered in bandages in a hospital bed has been shared thousands of times in multiple posts on Facebook which claim it shows a student who was hospitalised after an incident in Sri Lanka. This image has been used in a misleading context; it originated on a UK-based stock photo site and shows a patient suffering from a severe dermatological condition.

The photo was published here on Facebook on March 10, 2020. It has been shared more than 5600 times.

Below is a screenshot of the misleading Facebook post:

Screenshot of the Facebook post

The post’s Sinhala-language caption translates to English as: “Inter University JVP losers! You all should be hanged, white-vanned and used as food for crocodiles..The boy without a mother, was brought up by the father by working as a laborer..”

“Inter University JVP” is a reference to the Inter University Students Federation, a confederation of students' unions in Sri Lanka, that is formally affiliated to the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna party.

The post was published within days of an incident involving an undergraduate student at Sri Jayawardenapura University.

The student was hospitalised after suffering serious head injuries following an initiation ceremony involving a tractor tyre on March 6, 2020. Police have since detained four senior students for questioning over the incident, while the injured student remains in a critical condition at Colombo National Hospital, according to this March 11, 2020 report by the Sri Lankan television channel Ada Derana.

The photo was also shared here and here on Facebook alongside a similar claim.

The photo has been shared in a misleading context; it shows a patient hospitalised for a serious skin condition.

A Google reverse image search of the photo in the misleading posts found this page on the UK-based stock photo website Science Photo Library. The photo is captioned: “Toxic epidermal necrolysis patient in ICU”.

Toxic epidermal necrolysis is a life-threatening skin condition that often causes blistering and skin peeling, according to this explainer by the US’ Johns Hopkins University.

Below is a screenshot of the image on the stock photo site:

Screenshot of the image featured in the stock photo site

Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo in the misleading posts (L) and the stock photo image (R)

Screenshot comparison of the photo from the misleading post (L) and the stock photo image (R)

Pushpa Ramyani Zoysa, a Training Coordinator at Colombo National Hospital, also issued this statement on Facebook on March 10, 2020 explaining that the photo in the misleading posts does not show the hospitalised student.

Screenshot of the Facebook post

The Sinhala-language post translates to English as: “The Jayawardenepura student is receiving treatment at the Intensive Care Unit. Don’t circulate wrong claims. Also note that the image being circulated is not his picture.”

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