At a time when the whole world is fighting the deadly Coronavirus, a message claiming the US Scientists have developed a Coronavirus Vaccines is doing rounds on almost all the social media platforms particularly on WhatsApp creating hopeful confusion.
The message claims that the US President Donald Trump has recently announced the pharmaceutical company “Roche Medical Company” has succeeded in developing a vaccine for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) that will be launched “next Sunday”.
Viral news accompanying the video clip reads “Great news! Carona virus vaccine ready. Able to cure patient within 3 hours after injection. Hats off to US Scientists. Right now Trump announced that Roche Medical Company will launch the vaccine next Sunday, and millions of doses are ready from it”.
News Sense Fact Check Team found the information along with the image of the vaccine and video with the above claim as misleading for the general public, hence decided to debunk the video.
Video Fact Check
First while investigating the authenticity of the video, which was claimed to be the announcement of the launch of coronavirus vaccine manufactured by US Pharma major Roche Diagnostics, we found that in the 37-second video clip, Matt Sauce, President and CEO of the North-American division of Roche Diagnostics with the US President Donald Trump by his side can be clearly heard saying about the testing kit and not any vaccine.
As he says, “From Roche, we want to thank the FDA for their rapid approval of our coronavirus test. We really appreciate the partnership with the CDC and the FDA to get that to market it as fast a possible because it is critical for us to make that available to help patients in need and working with laboratories to get it going in the near future which will bring hundreds and thousands of tests available to patients in need in the United States.”
On inquiry, we also received the Press Statement dated 19th March 2020 from Roche where again it is clearly mentioned that it is a test kit and not the vaccine.
Image Fact Check
Secondly, while we started our search for the Photo, Google Image Search Revealed that it is not a vaccine but a test kit for Novel Coronavirus developed by Sugentech, a South Korean Company.
Going by the website of Sugentech which declares itself as the developer of vitro diagnostic systems and products based on BT-IT-NT convergence technology, we found the images in its production section with the following description.
Meanwhile in India, Pune based Mylab has started developing test kits and are soon available for the general public. Mylab will supply the kits at around Rs 1,500 per test. Labs are going to add the cost of protective gear and other items on this amount. But, the final price to the consumer cannot exceed the government-fixed cap of Rs 4,500.
Thus, from our research and findings, we can say that say the viral images, videos, and information claiming COVID 19 vaccine is out is Fake, but yes the testing kit to identify and detect COVID 19 is available in many countries of the world including the US and India.
Claim: Vaccines to cure COVID 19 developed by US Scientists and ready to be distributed.
Conclusion: The viral image, video, and information are that of a Covid-19 testing kit and the cure for COVID19 is still under research.
