A video has been shared multiple times on social media alongside a claim that it shows students running away to avoid forced COVID-19 vaccination.

The video was posted on Twitter by ANT1 (@ANT159694954) on February 2, 2021 with the caption SIC “Africa in Danager, kids running away from force vaccination. What is happening in the world.”

The 30 seconds clip has over 13,000 views.

THE CLAIM

Video shows students running away to avoid forced COVID-19 vaccination.

THE FINDINGS

Findings by the FactCheckHub show that the claim is FALSE.

Through the WeVerify technology and the Google Reverse Image Search, the video was traced online to May 25, 2019.

In 2019, The Guardian Nigeria reported how a 17-year-old student of Community Secondary School, Oroworukwo, Port Harcourt, Rivers State in Nigeria sent his school into pandemonium after he brought a teargas canister to school.

The canister had exploded while the students were fiddling with it.

“The explosion caused panic, prompting several students who were scared to start jumping down from the first floor of the two-storey of the secondary school,” the report stated.

The Vanguard newspaper in 2019, reported a follow-up of the incident.

The footage was recorded by a teacher and it went viral after it was posted on social media.

Ruth Major, the school’s principal had reported the incident at Olu-Obasanjo police station, Port Harcourt.

She said “On Thursday, we experienced a security challenge and it happened because a student in senior secondary school 2 brought a teargas canister to class and invited his mates.

“As they were contemplating on how to open it, one of them, Darlington, detonated it. When he opened it and smoke started coming out, he ran out of the class. As a result, there was panic and stampede.”

As such, the video which was online in 2019 could not have been of students running to evade forced COVID-19 vaccination. This is because it predates COVID-19 pandemic and also its vaccination.

The COVID-19 vaccines have been a subject of debate and misinformation.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak and its transition to a pandemic, the disease has spread across nations globally, infecting millions of people and killing millions as well.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) COVID-19 dashboard says, as of February 7, 2021, the confirmed cases globally are over 105 million (105,394,301) while death is over 2.3 million (2,302,302).

After several efforts, including supports from multiple experts in finding a cure to the pandemic, the WHO eventually announced the approval of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for emergency use.

In the second week of December 2019, the United States Food and Drug Administration Agency (FDA) also issued its support for the emergency use of the Pfizer/BioNTech.

Other vaccines such as Moderna, AstraZeneca, Suptnik V, Johnson and Johnson single-dose Covid-19 serum have been developed.

The Chinese, through its state-owned China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) also developed and approved Sinovac.

THE VERDICT

The claim that the video shows students running away to avoid forced COVID-19 vaccination is FALSE. The video was traced online to 2019; as such, it predates the COVID-19 pandemic and its vaccination.