epidemic

The ongoing Mpox epidemic in Africa has already caused hundreds of deaths, particularly in Congo. Probable or clearly identified cases now number in the thousands, some of which have even been identified outside Africa, prompting the World Health Organization (WHO) to trigger its highest health alert level on August 14. Since then, rumors and other fake news have been spreading on the internet, mainly on social networks, against a backdrop of conspiracy theories or homophobia.

A side effect of the Covid-19 vaccine

The video is translated and shared on X and Facebook, in many languages: we see a German doctor known for his anti-vaccine positions assuring that the symptoms described for mpox are the same as those of shingles. According to Wolfgang Wodarg, this shingles epidemic is a side effect of the Covid-19 vaccine, and the pharmaceutical industry would only seek to scare people for commercial purposes.

This is false because mpox was identified in the 1970s in a child in the former Zaire. It is therefore much older than the Covid vaccines. On the other hand, because it is a zoonotic virus, of animal origin, from the poxvirus family, while shingles is from the herpes family. The symptoms are also different, since shingles causes smaller lesions that generate characteristic intense pain.

MPOX does not only affect homosexuals

On social media, some claim that MPOX only affects homosexuals, with homophobic messages deeming these practices “disgusting”. But as Professor Richard Martinello, an infectious disease specialist at Yale University School of Medicine, explained to AFP, “no infectious disease in the world is transmitted differently based on sexual orientation. It is intimate skin-to-skin contact that can allow the transmission of MPOX, not individual sexual orientation.”

It is the infected fluid contained in the patient’s vesicles that transmits the virus, recalls Professor Antoine Gessain, a specialist in the disease at the Pasteur Institute, pointing out that children can be infected “by skin contact”, but also, as in the epidemic at the end of 2023 in the DRC, heterosexuals with multiple partners.

There is a miracle treatment but it is unavailable

A popular conspiracy theory, particularly on YouTube and Facebook, claims that a drug against mpox is very effective but is not available. A theory that is based on statements by the controversial professor Didier Raoult, dating from 2022, who assured the effectiveness of “Tranilast” against mpox, “a Japanese drug”, while stating that it “will never be marketed here, because it costs nothing”.

Except that Tranilast, approved in 1982 in Japan and China against asthma, has never been the subject of clinical studies on humans against mpox. So asserting its effectiveness is misleading. On the other hand, vaccination, combined with awareness-raising among people at risk and isolation of contact cases, has made it possible to stem the 2022 mpox epidemic.

WHO has ordered no lockdown

“Attention, mega-lockdowns in sight!” warn Internet users, arguing that these measures were ordered by the WHO to “governments”, thus attesting to the thesis of a “plandemic”, a neologism describing an orchestrated pandemic, according to the conspiracy narrative.

The WHO does not have the power to order governments to prepare for these “mega-lockdowns,” “or any type of lockdown for that matter,” the organization confirmed to AFP. “As a scientific and technical organization, the WHO provides advice to the 194 member states. Each country is sovereign in its decisions and actions concerning the health of its populations.” In France, on TikTok, Internet users even claim that due to the mpox epidemic, “the start of the school year has been postponed.” Information formally denied by the Ministry of Education.