A set of four videos - three of which are not from India - showing empty syringes administered to people instead of the Covid-19 vaccine are going viral on Facebook and WhatsApp in India.
BOOM found that the videos are from Mexico, Ecuador and Brazil. A fourth video from Maharashtra is also being shared asking people to be alert while being vaccinated.
The videos are viral with a caption that asks people to pay attention while getting vaccinated and not turn their faces away alleging that medical staff are injecting people with empty syringes. The claim in Hindi translates to,"Don't turn your face away while getting vaccinated. Check if the medicine has gone in...Nursing staff are only inserting the empty needle without the vaccine in the syringe. Corruption has crossed the limit in this difficult time...Watch in these four videos"
Facebook posts are sharing the videos after a recent incident in Saran district of Bihar where a nurse was suspended for injecting 'air' into a man's arm instead of the vaccine. The whole incident caught on video showed the nurse, busy talking to someone and forgetting to load the syringe with vaccine and instead, just pricking the empty needle into the man. Following the video which went viral, authorities investigated the incident and suspended the nurse. The man who was injected with the empty syringe was said to be fine, with no adverse effects. Read here
FACT CHECK
VIDEO 1
BOOM found that the video is from Mexico with local reports reporting that the nurse seen in the video was later withdrawn from vaccine duty. The video shows a nurse injecting an elderly man with an empty syringe who has his face turned away and a reverse image search on this showed results for Spanish article published in Columbia-based news outlet El Tiempo.
Read BOOM's fact check on the video here.
VIDEO 2
BOOM found that the video is from an incident in Ecuador.
A reverse image search on Yandex led showed results for a report published in CNN Espanol on April 26, 2021. The report carries the same video and mentions that the incident took place in Ecuador. Ecuador Health Minister Camilo Salinas had also tweeted about the incident saying the nurse in the viral video had been identified and an investigation initiated. The same video was also viral after a nurse in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh was accused of throwing away vaccine filled vials. Hindi news outlet Zee Hindustan and several verified Twitter handles had used the Ecuador video falsely linking it to the Aligarh incident.
Read BOOM's fact check on the video here
VIDEO 3
BOOM found that the video is from Manaus in Brazil.
A reverse image search for a video keyframe showed the same video published by British tabloids in stories about a series of videos from Brazil showing elderly people injected with 'air' instead of COVID-19 vaccines. Using this, we ran a reverse image search using Portuguese keywords for reports about senior citizens injected with empty syringes and found reports in several Brazilian media outlets. A February 4, 2021 story in Em Tempo, carried visuals from the same video and reported that the incident was from Manaus, a city in the Brazilian state of Amazonas and says the City Hall authorities took action against the health care worker seen in the video. We also found a tweet from another news portal, Do Holanda, saying the incident was from Manaus.
VIDEO 4
The fourth video though from India shows a man shouting at the doctors and nurses alleging he was pricked with an empty needle and not one filled with the vaccine. The man recording identifies the hospital as Ranka Hospital in Mukundnagar, Pune in Maharashtra. However another video uploaded to the hospital's shows the founder of the hospital, Dr Mukund Ranka and the man who made the video clarifying that it was a misunderstanding. Saahil Shah, who allegedly recorded the video says, "It was a misunderstanding. I did not feel any pain in my arm while being injected and hence thought I did not receive the vaccine and was instead pricked with the empty syringe."
BOOM could not independently confirm the incident and did not find any news reports about the same.