Coronavirus case in Uttar Pradesh district, India.
The Hindi post translates to English as: “The condition of a man in Barhalganj remains serious due to coronavirus. He was admitted to a local hospital when his condition started deteriorating and it was found during the treatment that the virus entered his body after eating chicken. I request you all with folded hands, please do not consume any type of meat and pay attention to cleanliness. Forward this message through WhatsApp to make other people aware. Thank you.”, Barhalganj is a small town in Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur district., The claim was also shared here, here, here and here\xa0on Facebook and here on Twitter., As of February 24, 2020, the coronavirus has killed over 2,400 people and\xa0infected more than 80,000 globally,\xa0AFP reported., However, the claim about a confirmed infection in Barhalganj is false., “There are no confirmed novel coronavirus patients in the district,” Dr. Shrikant Tiwari, the Chief Medical Officer of Gorakhpur district, told AFP by phone on February 20, 2020. “We had kept 35 people out of 43 who had returned to Gorakhpur from abroad since 10 January under strict observation, but all of them have been tested negative.”, Local media reports, for example here and here in Hindi, also confirmed Dr. Tiwari’s statement., Meanwhile, the Indian government’s Poultry Development Organization told AFP it was “absolutely wrong” and there is “no evidence” that novel coronavirus has been detected in poultry., Nationwide, India has only recorded three cases of novel coronavirus, all of which were in the southern Indian state of Kerala. All three patients have recovered and been discharged from hospital, the Ministry of Health announced on February 21, 2020., , , Copyright © AFP 2017-2020.  All rights reserved.  Users can access and consult this website and use the share features available for personal, private, and non-commercial purposes.  Any other use, in particular any reproduction, communication to the public or distribution of the content of this website, in whole or in part, for any other purpose and/or by any other means, without a specific licence agreement signed with AFP, is strictly prohibited.  The subject matter depicted or included via links within the Fact Checking content is provided to the extent necessary for correct understanding of the verification of the information concerned.  AFP has not obtained any rights from the authors or copyright owners of this third party content and shall incur no liability in this regard.  AFP and its logo are registered trademarks.
Indian health authority refutes hoax report of coronavirus case in Uttar Pradesh district | AFP Fact Check