Original title: The WHO is offering 20 million dollars in bribes to prevent the sale of natural remedies for coronavirus!
The portal Mytime published an article claiming that the President of the African country Madagascar had been offered 20 million dollars in bribes by the World Health Organization to destroy a specimen of the drug made from the plant Artemisia anua. Namely, President Rahoelina suggests that a drug called Covid Organica will act as both a medicine and a vaccine, but the only reason for not approving the drug is that Madagascar is a very poor African country, and they (WHO) cannot accept that such a poor country came up with a formula to save the world. “The WHO has offered them 20 million dollars in bribes to put poison in an organic COVID-19 drug made in Madagascar, in order to prove clinically harmful”, the statement said.
The link to the original article can be found here.
It all started with an interview with the president of Madagascar on France 24 in which he talks about his country’s discovery and says that their invention is not accepted just because it comes from a poor African country. The false news about the alleged bribe, which emerged from the interview, was published by a Tanzanian newspaper.
From the entire interview of the president of Madagascar on France 24, it can be seen that he never mentions bribes by the WHO. His only concern is that their traditional medicine is not taken as seriously as if it would have been if it were from another stronger state, although he thinks it has very strong effects against coronavirus.
President Andriy Rahelina complains about the double standards of the WHO but at no point does he say that he was offered a bribe to destroy his medicine. So the claim that the WHO offered them a bribe of 20 million dollars to put poison in the organic medicine to prove it harmful is false.
The truth is that the WHO is wary of this drug, as well as all vaccines and drugs for coronavirus, because it has not yet been put to laboratory analysis in the institutions of this world organization, a rule that applies equally to all countries. In the WHO’s response about this African drug, it is stated that “many plants and substances are proposed without minimum requirements and evidence of quality, safety and efficacy. The use of COVID-19 treatment products, which have not been sufficiently tested, can put people at risk by giving them a false sense of security and thus distracting them from hand washing and physical distance, which are essential in preventing COVID-19”.
The African Union is also skeptical of the drug until it is tested in an independent WHO laboratory.
“The African Union is in negotiations with the Republic of Madagascar, through its embassy in Addis Ababa, in order to obtain technical data on the safety and efficacy of the herbal medicine, recently published by Madagascar for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. The Union, through the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will review the data collected so far on the safety and efficacy of the drug. This review will be based on global technical and ethical norms to gather the necessary scientific evidence regarding the potion”, the African Union said in a statement.
From this misinformation that is gaining momentum in Africa, that continued to spread in several languages around the world, one can understand the seriousness of fake news that knows no boundaries.
Although disclosed by more serious fact-checking services such as AFP (Agence France-Presse) and AfricaCheck, misinformation has managed to reach our country, as well.
Therefore, our goal is to present you the real facts about information, which, although somehow slower and more difficult, still reach us.
