It is false that a girl died in Bahia after being vaccinated against Covid-19, as stated in videos shared on social networks.
According to the Ministry of Health, no child or adolescent under 18 years of age died in Brazil as a result of an adverse post-vaccination event.
The Bahia State Department of Health also claims that there is no record of child death as a result of the application of the vaccine, or even cases under investigation that fit the profile of the girls shown in the videos.
THE Proof Project verified videos, audio and photos circulating on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp that say that a girl died after receiving the immunization against covid-19. In another video, which circulates on WhatsApp, an edit is made that combines excerpts from two of these videos with the words: “Another child has died” and the image of a syringe.
It is false that a girl died after being vaccinated against covid-19 in Brazil. In a note sent to Comprova on the 27th, the Ministry of Health said that no one under the age of 18 died after receiving the immunizer in the country.
Videos circulating on the internet show children feeling sick in two moments: vomiting into a bucket and complaining of pain in a hospital bed. The physical characteristics are apparently distinct. These videos were shared separately, with different names given to the children.
However, there is an edited version, which circulates on WhatsApp, which unites the two excerpts, implying that they would be images of the same girl and that she would have died as a result of the application of the vaccine against covid-19.
In the different contents that circulate, the girls are called by different names and there is conflicting information about the cities of origin. But in one of the videos it is possible to see, next to one of them, a boy who wears the school uniform of the municipal network of Salvador, Bahia.
The Bahia State Health Department informed Comprova that the state has not recorded any deaths resulting from post-vaccination adverse events. The State also said that there is no case under investigation that fits the profile of a female under the age of 18.
The panel of the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa), which records suspected pharmacovigilance events, says that the only suspected case registered in Bahia for the Pfizer vaccine was an adult male.
Other messages suggested that one of the girls had been treated in Manaus. The Municipal Health Department was contacted and informed Comprova that there is no record of serious post-vaccination adverse events in children under 18 years of age in the city. The Anvisa panel points out that, so far, there is no case of a suspected adverse reaction to the Pfizer immunizer in the entire state of Amazonas.
Comprova heard the woman whose WhatsApp number appears in some posts sharing the audio that would be the child’s mother. She said she did not know the family and stated that she received the content from other groups and only shared it because she was looking for information about the episode.
False, for Comprova, is the invented content.
How do we check?
First, we looked for information in the suspicious content that could tell us where the girls in the video and photos were from and their names. In addition to the uniform of Salvador’s municipal network, some messages indicated that she could have been treated at the Costa do Cacau State Hospital, located in the city of Ilhéus, in Bahia, or at the Santa Izabel Hospital, a Santa Casa in Salvador. Two comments on Instagram suggested that the images of at least one of the girls were from Manaus, Amazonas.
Comprova contacted the Ministry of Health, Anvisa, the Bahia State Health Council and the health departments of Bahia, Salvador and Manaus, in search of information on serious adverse events associated with vaccination in females who had less of 18 years.
We also searched by email the Brazilian Institute for the Development of Hospital Administration (IBDAH), which manages the Costa do Cacau State Hospital, and the Santa Izabel Hospital using the WhatsApp number available on the website.
Comprova also approached the Public Ministry of the State of Bahia about sharing the videos.
We contacted via WhatsApp with the number of the woman who, according to some of the contents, would have shared the audio associated with the mother of one of the children.
Finally, we searched for the profiles that shared the images of the children and another that posted a video that, supposedly, would be the account of the aunt of one of the girls denying the relationship between death and the vaccine against covid-19.
Comprova made this verification based on scientific information and official data on the new coronavirus and covid-19 available on January 31, 2021.
Verification
No children died after vaccination
Although the investigated contents state that the girl would have died after vaccination, the Ministry of Health sent a note to Comprova stating that “there are no records of deaths by causality with covid-19 vaccines in children under 18” in Brazil.
The State Department of Health said, also in a note, that Bahia had no deaths resulting from post-vaccination adverse events until January 27, 2022. It also stated that no female under 18 years of age was treated in the Costa do Cacau Regional Hospital, which belongs to the state network, with a serious case of post-vaccination adverse reaction.
In a second contact, Comprova insisted to know if there was any case of a female under 18 years old under investigation. The folder said that there is no case with these characteristics under review.
The Bahia State Health Council said it had not received information about a suspected case of a girl who died after an adverse event related to vaccination.
The press office of Salvador’s Health Department said there was no record of assistance in the municipal network of the case shown in the video in which a boy in the city’s school uniform appears next to the child.
In response to Comprova by e-mail, the Public Ministry of Bahia said it was not aware of the sharing of the videos. The agency asked that the material be sent to the Support Center for the Defense of Children and Adolescents (Caoca), “so that the Public Ministry of Bahia can investigate the facts and take the necessary measures”.
Anvisa and the institute that manages the Costa do Cacau Hospital did not respond. To the website Ilhéus 24 horas, the health unit said that the girl’s death was fake. The Santa Izabel Hospital WhatsApp stated that the contact of the press office could only be passed by calling the institution’s fixed number, which did not answer.
As the suspicious content was already circulating on the Internet on January 20, the girls in question could only have received the Comirnaty vaccine, from the pharmaceutical Pfizer, since the authorization for the application of CoronaVac in children under 18 years of age was only granted by Anvisa in day 20.
A panel on the Anvisa website records the notifications of suspected cases by pharmacovigilance across the country for vaccines and medicines. In Bahia, the only adverse reaction after application of Comirnaty was in an adult male, aged between 18 and 44 years, whose notification occurred in November 2021.
In Amazonas, no suspected cases of adverse events related to Comirnaty were reported to Anvisa.
The girls
None of the suspicious content says the girls’ last name. And each one cites a different name for the child. In the video that was shared by a page as being the aunt of one of them, the alleged relative also does not mention the girl’s name. Without this information, it was not possible to identify the children and confirm with certainty whether the images show different individuals or the same child.
Sought after, the profile that shared the video of the alleged aunt said that it removed the content of a Telegram group, but could not say which one. And he added that he had no information about the family and the place where the original post of the video was made by the alleged aunt, who, in the video, denies the relationship between the death and the vaccine and asks them to stop sharing the image that would be of her niece. in a hospital bed.
Comprova tried reverse searches for the content from the prints taken from the video, but did not find other posts of the material.
By WhatsApp, Comprova talked to the woman who shared an audio that would be from the girl’s mother. But she said she didn’t know the family, she just shared content she received in another group because she would be looking for more information about the case.
Similar information was also said in posts from other profiles that shared the material on social media.
It was also not possible to locate the child through the comments left in the posts, as each one brought different information regarding the names and places where the images would have been recorded.
Why do we investigate?
Comprova investigates suspicious content about the pandemic, public policies and elections that have gone viral on social media. Together, the contents investigated here had more than 3,000 interactions on Facebook alone.
When the content deals with the pandemic, verification is even more necessary, because misinformation can lead people to fail to protect themselves and expose themselves to risks of infection. This is made even more evident by the fact that videos, images and audio are circulating at the time vaccination reaches children aged 5 to 11 years.
The website Boatos.org published a check on the videos, denying the veracity. Recently, Comprova showed that the Ministry of Health ruled out the relationship between the vaccine and the death of a teenager in João Pessoa; that the video of a desperate father is old, was filmed in the Amazon and has nothing to do with the vaccine; and that a misleading publication distorts German study data to criticize childhood vaccination.
False, for Comprova, is content invented or edited to change its original meaning and deliberately disclosed to spread a lie.
*Investigated by: Jornal do Commercio, Estadão and O Dia. Verified by: CNN Brasil, O Popular, Correio de Carajás and Correio Braziliense
Source: CNN Brasil
