2024-09-02 21:32:33
Beware of disinformation
False reports about Mpox are spreading on social media
Updated on 02.09.2024 – 10:48Reading time: 4 min.
Fake news about Mpox is spreading on social media. Well-known false claims about the corona pandemic are being re-published.
Lockdowns, mass vaccinations and curfews? Should everything really start all over again? This time we’re not talking about Corona, but about Mpox. In certain corners of social media, the murmuring has recently become louder again. Using familiar conspiracy patterns from the Covid-19 pandemic, a new field of disinformation is now being cultivated based on the disease formerly known as monkeypox.
Mpox is a viral disease that was originally transmitted from animals to humans. Mpox was formerly called “monkeypox” because the virus was first discovered by chance in monkeys in the 1950s. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends renaming it “Mpox” because the term can be perceived as racist and stigmatizing. In addition, the term “monkeypox” is a misnomer. Although monkeys can be intermediate hosts, they do not appear to play a role in transmission to humans. Mpox viruses occur naturally in rodents.
While the coronavirus has now disappeared from daily life for many and disinformation about Covid-19 is mostly only exchanged in relevant circles on the Internet, false claims about Mpox have recently gained attention on Facebook, X, Tiktok, Telegram and Co.
“The fact that the topic of Mpox was in the media is also reflected in right-wing extremist and conspiracy-ideological Telegram channels,” explains Miro Dittrich from the Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy (Cemas), which investigates radicalization tendencies and conspiracy theories on the Internet. According to the Cemas managing director, the keywords “monkeypox” or “Mpox” were mentioned particularly frequently in the approximately 5,000 Telegram channels and groups examined in mid-August.
At that time, the World Health Organization (WHO) had declared a “public health emergency of international concern” due, among other things, to the increasing spread of a certain Mpox virus variant (clade Ib) in Africa. One of the reasons it wants to do this is to make authorities around the world more vigilant.
The claim quickly spread online that the WHO had ordered governments to prepare for further mega-lockdowns. It did not. In any case, such a directive is completely unfounded: the international organization is neither authorized nor able to do so. “Only the countries themselves have the sovereignty to make decisions and take measures for the health of their population,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told the German Press Agency (dpa).
The narrative of excessive WHO power has already caught on with quite a few people during the Corona period – and was just as wrong then as it is today. “Potential infringements of fundamental rights would be the sole consequence of sovereign state action,” experts at the Bundestag’s scientific services explained as early as 2023.
Epidemiologist and tropical medicine specialist Prof. Dr. Jürgen May explains in this article what the declaration of an international emergency means and how likely an Mpox pandemic is.
It turns out that false claims from the Corona pandemic are often transferred one-to-one to Mpox. “Conspiracy ideologists can still reach people with the topic of Corona, but interest in it has already dropped to a very specific group,” explains Cemas expert Dittrich. There are simply no longer any government measures against which one can mobilize.
“If a new disease emerges and there is a vaccine for it, then of course it will be covered by the same narrative,” says the right-wing extremism researcher. “The conspiracy ideologists don’t care at all how dangerous Mpox is, how it is transmitted or what kind of vaccine helps against it.”
One thing must be clear: the diseases are very different from one another. The transmission route of both viruses differs considerably – and thus also their infectious potential. Sars-Cov-2 is mainly transmitted via tiny droplets in the air, i.e. the respiratory tract. With Mpox, however, skin-to-skin contact is the main transmission route.
This mainly involves close skin-to-skin contact during sex or close hugging, massaging and kissing, as the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) explains. The risk of infection is particularly high in infected people with rashes, wounds or scabs. You can find more information about infection and the symptoms here.
“Mpox is not the new Covid,” said WHO Director for Europe Hans Kluge in Geneva in mid-August. When asked by journalists whether lockdowns like those during the coronavirus pandemic are imminent, he replied: “No.” The WHO also does not recommend wearing a face mask.