- Phillies win thriller to level Mets series
- Yu bags first PGA Tour win with playoff win
- PSG held by Nice to leave Monaco clear at top of Ligue 1
- AC Milan fall at Fiorentina after De Gea's penalty heroics
- Lewandowski treble for leaders Barca as Atletico held
- Fresh Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Sucic stunner earns Real Sociedad draw against Atletico
- PSG draw with Nice, fail to reclaim top spot in Ligue 1
- Gudmundsson downs AC Milan after De Gea's penalty heroics for Fiorentina
- 'Yes' vote prevails in Kazakhstan nuclear plant vote: TV
- 'Difficult day': Oct 7 commemorations begin with festival memorial
- Commemorations begin for anniversary of attack on Israel
- Lewandowski hat-trick powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- 'Nothing gets in way of team,' says Celtics' MVP hopeful Tatum
- India maintain Pakistan stranglehold as Windies cruise at Women's T20 World Cup
- 'We will win!': Mozambique's ruling party confident at final vote rally
- Tunisia voting ends as Saied eyes re-election with critics behind bars
- Florida braces for Milton, FEMA head slams 'dangerous' Helene misinformation
- Postecoglou slams 'unacceptable' Spurs after 'terrible' loss at Brighton
- Marmoush double denies Bayern outright Bundesliga top spot
- Rallies worldwide call for Gaza, Lebanon ceasefire
- Maresca hails Chelsea's 'fighting' spirit after draw with 10-man Forest
- New 'Joker' film, a dark musical, tops N.America box office
- Man Utd stalemate keeps Ten Hag in danger, Spurs rocked by Brighton
- Drowned by hurricane, remote N.Carolina towns now struggle for water
- Vikings hold off Jets in London to stay unbeaten
- Ahead of attack anniversary, Netanyahu says: 'We will win'
- West Indies cruise to T20 World Cup win over Scotland
- Arshdeep, Chakravarthy help India hammer Bangladesh in T20 opener
- Lewandowski's quickfire hat-trick powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- Man Utd fire another blank in Aston Villa stalemate
- Lewandowski treble powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- Russian activist killed on front line in Ukraine
- Openda strike briefly sends Leipzig top of Bundesliga
- Goal-shy Man Utd have to 'step up', says Ten Hag
- India bowl out Bangladesh for 127 in T20 opener
- Madueke rescues Chelsea in draw with 10-man Forest
- Beckett's belief rewarded as Bluestocking storms to Arc glory
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- Flash flooding kills three in northern Thailand
- Kaur leads India to victory over Pakistan in Women's T20 World Cup
- Juventus held by Cagliari after late penalty drama
- In France's Marseille, teen 'stabbed 50 times' then burned alive
- Ruthless Gauff beats Muchova in straight sets to win China Open
- India restrict Pakistan to 105-8 in Women's T20 World Cup
- England target repeat of Pakistan Test whitewash
- Penrith Panthers win fourth straight NRL title after downing Storm
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- Pakistan's Masood warns England still a force without Stokes
- Madrid's Carvajal to miss several months after serious knee injury
'Very ignorant rumour': Misinformation abounds about monkeypox
The recent emergence of hundreds of cases of monkeypox worldwide has already triggered a flood of misinformation online, much of it modelled on conspiracy theories that have been circulating since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
AFP Fact Check examined three claims that have arisen in the month since monkeypox cases began being recorded outside of areas in western and central Africa where it is endemic.
- Not a vaccine side effect -
Social media posts shared across the world have incorrectly claimed that the recent monkeypox cases are a "side effect" of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.
The claim is linked to the fact that AstraZeneca's jab uses a chimpanzee adenovirus vector.
But health experts told AFP that this idea "has no basis in fact", in part because the viruses belong in different families -- poxvirus for monkeypox, and adenovirus for the Covid vaccine.
The vaccine "cannot generate new viruses inside humans and cause something like monkeypox," said Professor Eom Jung-shik, an infectious disease expert at the Gachon University Gil Medical Center.
The adenovirus is the vaccine vector, which means it is only a vehicle to transport genetic instructions to the body to trigger the production of a spike protein similar to that of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This then prompts an immune response so the body can fight a real infection.
As in other viral vector vaccines, the chimpanzee adenovirus has been altered so it does not infect humans or replicate.
Professor Yoo Jin-hong, an epidemiologist at the Catholic University of Korea, said the AstraZeneca claim "appears to stem from the idea that chimpanzees are broadly referred to as monkeys, but this is a very ignorant rumour with no basis in fact".
Monkeypox was given its name because it was first discovered in a group of macaques in 1958 that were being studied for research purposes, but they are not the only animals that catch the disease.
Rodents are the most likely natural reservoir of monkeypox, according to the World Health Organization.
- Pfizer does not have a monkeypox vaccine -
Social media posts have also claimed that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved a new monkeypox vaccine from pharma giant Pfizer, which developed the first available Covid vaccine.
This is false; the only vaccine for the prevention of monkeypox in the United States was approved by the FDA in 2019, and Pfizer does not manufacture it.
Abby Capobianco, a press officer at the FDA, told AFP that the vaccine, called Jynneos, was "licensed by FDA for the prevention of smallpox and monkeypox disease in adults 18 years of age and older determined to be at high risk for smallpox or monkeypox disease."
Jynneos is not a new vaccine -- the FDA approved it in September 2019.
Pharmaceutical company Bavarian Nordic, which produces Jynneos, announced on May 18, 2022 that the US government had placed a $119 million order for freeze-dried doses.
Jynneos is the only FDA-approved vaccine for monkeypox, however data has shown that a smallpox vaccine is 85 percent effective in preventing the disease, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Pfizer told AFP that the company does not have a monkeypox vaccine.
- False Canada shingles claim -
Social media posts shared an image of a purported article from Canada's CTV News claiming that 95 percent of the monkeypox cases investigated by Canadian officials turned out to be shingles.
However Rob Duffy, CTV News manager of communications at its parent company Bell Media, told AFP that the network "never published such a story and that the screenshot does not show an authentic article from CTV News".
While some symptoms might be similar in cases of shingles and monkeypox, they are not caused by the same virus, according to Isaac Bogoch, professor at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto.
"There may be some overlap in their clinical presentation," but "monkeypox and shingles are two completely different infections," he told AFP.
O.Norris--AMWN