Masks hawker was admitted at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Kenya with COVID-19.
According to the post, the hawker had been selling face masks on the streets of Nairobi for three weeks before being admitted at the KNH’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU)., The post adds that the government is now unable to trace people he came into contact with, and is calling on anyone who might have purchased masks around Kencom area to come forth., The post does not, however, identify the hawker in question, although it includes an image of a vendor in a busy street. An internet search shows that the photo was taken on Moi Avenue in Nairobi by Daily Nation journalist Wahito Kanyiri and was published on March 13, 2020., Although the post also cites a local daily — The Star — as the source of its claim, it doesn’t share a link to the story or indicate when the article was published., A search on the publication’s website, as well as its Facebook and Twitter pages, does not show the story in question., Additionally, the news outlet disowned the post and flagged the story as fake., The Facebook account that posted the claim has since deleted it and changed its profile name and display photo., Further, Dr Kepha Ombacho, the environmental health and safety head at the Ministry of Health, told PesaCheck that he was not aware of any case of a masks hawker admitted at KNH with COVID-19., “I have also seen the claim. It is part of what people are doing — churning a lot of unverified information,” said Dr Ombacho., On April 13, 2020, the Ministry of Health announced that the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Kenya rose by 11 to 209, with 40 people having recovered from the disease and nine others losing their lives., PesaCheck has looked into a Facebook post claiming that a face masks hawker was admitted at KNH with COVID-19 and finds it to be FALSE., This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms., By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds., Have you spotted what you think is fake news or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content., This fact-check was written by Fact-Checker Simon Muli and edited by Enock Nyariki, PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org., PesaCheck is a joint initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with additional funding support from the International Budget Partnership (Kenya) and Twaweza, in partnership with a coalition of local media organisations, and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ)., Written by, Written by
FALSE: This post claiming a masks hawker was admitted at KNH with COVID-19 is not true