A photo showing Uganda’s first case of COVID-19.
The photo in the post shows a man wearing a face-mask at what appears to be an airport, and the post claims that the man had travelled to Dubai on 18 March to import phone screen guards before returning to Uganda, where he tested positive for COVID-19 on arrival., However, a Google reverse image search shows that the image is not from Uganda, but was actually taken at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York in February 2020. The photo is credited to Stephanie Keith, a New York Times photographer, and has been published in a number of media outlets including, The New York Times, Buffalo News and The TimesUnion., The photo was first published on 29th February 2020 in a New York Times article about the United States Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams urging the public to stop buying face masks., On March 21, Uganda confirmed its first COVID-19 case after a Ugandan national who arrived from Dubai via Addis Ababa tested positive for the disease at the Entebbe International Airport. The Ministry of Health has not released any photo of the man, or provided information on his personal details., PesaCheck has looked into a photo claiming to show the Ugandan man who tested positive for COVID-19 upon arrival from Dubai on March 21 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 PesaCheck Fact-Checker Pius Enywaru and edited by PesaCheck Deputy Editor Ann Ngengere., The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck Managing Editor Eric Mugendi., 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 man wearing a face mask is not Uganda’s first confirmed COVID-19 case