Africans are more resistant to COVID-19.
The article appears to have been republished from Opera News verbatim, and has been posted on a number of blogs, including abiapulse.com and zambianeye.com., According to the article, unnamed Chinese doctors said that Senou had survived because of his ‘blood genetic composition’, and that he survived because he has ‘black skin’. The article also claims that ‘the antibodies of a black person are 3 times stronger, powerful and resistant compared to that of white’., The article also claims that Senou was ‘fit even after contracting the virus’. However, in an interview with the BBC, Senou indicates that he had suffered from a fever, a dry cough, and flu-like symptoms, and had been in isolation for 13 days., China’s Embassy in Cameroon confirmed the Cameroonian student enrolled at the University of Yangtze had been treated for the novel coronavirus, and left the hospital on February 10, having been completely cured., The current outbreak of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first reported in Wuhan, China, on December 31, 2019 and has spread to 29 countries and territories. Of the 71,449 confirmed cases as of February 17, there have been 1,775 deaths, and 10,983 recoveries., The vast majority of cases and recoveries are of mainland Chinese, and one case where an African recovered is not enough to make such a broad claim., Dr. Ngumbau Kitheka, a resident doctor at the Kenyatta National Hospital, told PesaCheck there is no scientific evidence to suggest black people have a better chance of fighting the virus, stating that the disease is likely to affect those with weaker immune systems, such as the elderly and the very young. Therefore, the fact that Senou is in his mid 20s is likely to be more of a factor that led to his recovery than the colour of his skin as the article claimed., The virus that causes COVID-19 is part of a larger family of viruses that cause illnesses ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV)., There is no evidence that black people were less susceptible to the disease, and the World Health Organization is coordinating global work on surveillance, epidemiology, diagnostics, clinical care and treatment, and other ways to identify, manage the disease and limit onward transmission., 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 Researcher Musembi Mutisya and edited by PesaCheck Deputy Editor Christine Mutisya. 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: There is no scientific evidence that Africans are more resistant to COVID-19