No Afghan dies from Covid-19 ‘vaccine’ in Iran

KABUL (Pajhwok): A social media report about the deaths of Afghan refugees in Iran after being given coronavirus vaccine is false, Pajhwok Afghan News learned on Tuesday.

The report was published on November 23 in a Facebook page “The Voice of Refugees.” The report titled ‘Administration of Covid-19 vaccine to Afghan migrants in Iran caused their deaths’ says: “A number of refugees contacted us from Iran and reported that their relatives have died after being administered Ampule drug in Iranian medical centers.”

In all such claims, it was said that Iranian doctors in medical centres told them that coronavirus related drug would be administered to patients against a huge amount of money which will help them recover from the coronavirus. But after a few hours from the administration of this drug, the patients suffered cardiac arrest and died. In the past two months, tens of such incidents were reported to the Voice of Refugees page.

The report said it seemed some Iranian organizations have been conducting coronavirus vaccine tests on patients and particularly Afghan migrants. The Voice of Refugees is investigating this issue.

After publication of this report, over 430 Facebook users shared the post with their friends.

It is worth mentioning that thousands of social media users liked this post of Voice of Refugees, over 500 shared their views in comments with some termed this post as real while others called untrue.

AbbasMohammadi, a Facebook user, wrote: “My dear fellow countrymen and women, if you got sick, don’t refer to medical centres in Iran. One went from his home to hospital and after a few hours, his family was contacted to come and collect his body — there is nothing by the name of humanity in Iran.”

But Hussain Jafari, another social media user, wrote: “After investigation, this news was found wrong and nothing as such exists.”

The news started circulating in social media after former Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinejad said: “Some Iranian officials have received coronavirus medicines from the World Health Organization, which is being administered in medical centres to patients.”

But Abdul GhafoorLaiwal, Afghanistan Ambassador in Iran, said no individual has so far registered complaint regarding the death of any Afghan migrant from coronavirus related drug. There was no report in this regard, he added.

He said the Embassy’s incidents branch, legal branch and refugees attaché had received no complaint in this regard.

Meanwhile, Iranian embassy in Kabul also termed the news as fake and baseless. “The claim of testing coronavirus related drugs on Afghan refugees living in Iran is completely false and baseless. Unfortunately, it seems that some irresponsible social networks, with specific goals, are trying to destroy the psychological security of immigrants and create tension in the good relations between Iran and Afghanistan,” a source in the Iranian embassy media wing said.

The Public Health Ministry in Afghanistan says it has registered 48,363 positive coronavirus cases since the outbreak of the virus in the country. So far 38,033 persons have recovered while 1,908 persons died from the virus.

Worldwide,over 65 million people have been infected by the virus , over 1.5 million died from the virus while 48 million have recovered.

Nh/ma

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