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  • 2020-03-06 (xsd:date)
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  • Israeli scientists have not developed a COVID-19 vaccine -- they were still working to develop one in February 2020 (en)
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  • Multiple Facebook posts shared thousands of times in Sri Lanka claim that Israeli scientists have developed a vaccine against the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. The claim is misleading; Israel’s MIGAL Research Institute said in a press release in February 2020 that it was still working to develop a vaccine for COVID-19; the image of a vial labelled coronavirus vaccine in the misleading Facebook posts was taken from a stock photo website. The post was published here on Facebook on March 2, 2020. It has been shared more than 2,500 times. It features a photo of a vial labelled Coronavirus Vaccine and Sinhala-language text, which translates to English as: Israel discovers a vaccine against coronavirus. / Doctors of Israel - the home of medical research, has said they have received excellent results by giving the corona vaccine. Below is a screenshot of the misleading Facebook post: Screenshot of the Facebook post The post was also shared here , here , here and here on Facebook alongside a similar claim. The claim is misleading; Israel’s state-funded MIGAL Research Institute announced that it has developed a vaccine against Infectious Bronchitis Virus, a strain of coronavirus affecting poultry. The institute added that this may be adapted to create a human vaccine against COVID-19, but is still weeks away from completing safety approvals that will enable in-vivo testing, ahead of a vaccine being produced. In a press release dated February 27, 2020, it said: MIGAL’s researchers have developed an effective vaccine against avian coronavirus Infectious Bronchitis Virus (IBV), to be adapted soon and create a human vaccine against COVID-19. Given the urgent global need for a human coronavirus vaccine, we are doing everything we can to accelerate development. Our goal is to produce the vaccine during the next 8-10 weeks, and to achieve safety approval in 90 days. The World Health Organization’s website also says there is no vaccine and no specific antiviral medicine to prevent or treat COVID-2019 in this Q&A section of its website. Below is a screenshot of the relevant section on the WHO website: Screenshot of the WHO website Q&A on COVID-19 vaccine A Google reverse image search for the photo in the misleading posts found it was previously published on the stock photography website Shutterstock here . The caption reads: Coronavirus vaccine vial with injection syringe at the background. Coronavirus is a general term for a group of viruses. Below is a screenshot comparison between the photo misleading post (L) and the Shutterstock photo (R): Screenshot comparison between the photo misleading post (L) and the Shutterstock photo (R) (en)
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