A news article headline says the Chinese team of 15 doctors sent to Nigeria have all tested positive for coronavirus.
“15 Chinese team all tested positive for coronavirus today in Abuja,” reads the headline of a\xa0 10 April 2020 article on the Nigerian website Exclusive103., The article has been shared on Facebook, where it’s been viewed nearly 400,000 times., A team of 15 Chinese medical experts, including doctors, nurses and laboratory technicians, arrived in Nigeria to “help strengthen testing and management of Covid-19 cases”, the article says., But did all 15 test positive for Covid-19? We checked., The article itself does not back up the claim in the headline. The headline says all the experts tested positive for Covid-19, but the text simply reports that the health minister, Dr Osagie Ehanire, had said in a press statement that the team would be quarantined for 14 days and tested for Covid-19., The article goes on to discuss the minister’s statements about medical supplies, including personal protective equipment such as medical masks and ventilators, that were donated by the Chinese government and arrived with the team., At no point does the article claim that the Chinese medical experts tested positive for Covid-19 or mention the results of the tests, which had not yet been conducted., No other news outlet has reported that the Chinese team tested positive for Covid-19 and neither has Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Health., The team of 15 medical experts arrived in Abuja on 8 April 2020 with medical equipment and supplies valued at US$1.5 million, donated by the Chinese government., In a press conference at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Ehanire said the experts would be helping with strategy for and management of the disease, but would first be quarantined., “They will be in quarantine for 14 days. They knew that before they came and they conducted their own tests before they left their country,” Ehanire said., The team will be tested under quarantine in accordance with Nigeria’s existing restrictions on travellers from high-risk countries such as China and Italy., The article’s headline is false. The Chinese medical team will be tested for Covid-19 in accordance with Nigeria’s rules on travellers from high-risk countries. The tests are still being conducted and there is no evidence they tested positive before they arrived in Nigeria. – Naledi Mashishi, , "A fact-checker has rated your Facebook or Instagram post as “false”. What should you do? First, dont delete!", Click on our guide for the steps you should follow., Publishers guide, Africa Check is a partner in Facebook’s third-party fact-checking programme to help stop the spread of false information on social media., The content we rate as “false” will be downgraded on Facebook and Instagram. This means fewer people will see it., You can also help identify false information on Facebook. This guide explains how., Africa Check is working with the CoronaVirusFacts/DatosCoronaVirus Alliance, a coalition of more than 100 fact-checkers fighting misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic., Learn more about the alliance here., , © Copyright Africa Check 2020. Read our republishing guidelines.\xa0You may reproduce this piece or content from it for the purpose of reporting and/or discussing news and current events. This is subject to: Crediting Africa Check in the byline, keeping all hyperlinks to the sources used and adding this sentence at the end of your publication: “This report was written by Africa Check, a non-partisan fact-checking organisation. View the original piece on their website", with a link back to this page., We depend on voluntary donations to run this site. Please help us to keep public figures accountable by supporting the project., Find out more, For democracy to function, public figures need to be held to account for what they say. The claims they make need to be checked, openly and impartially. Africa Check is an independent, non-partisan organisation which assesses claims made in the public arena using journalistic skills and evidence drawn from the latest online tools, readers, public sources and experts, sorting fact from fiction and publishing the results., , Get a weekly dose of facts, straight to your inbox.
Chinese medical experts sent to Nigeria tested positive for Covid-19? No, headline false | Africa Check