DISINFO: Media reports: Ukrainians infected with resilient bacteria pose a danger to Europe
SUMMARY
Dangerous bacteria resistant to antibiotics are increasingly expanding throughout Ukraine. Media are reporting, following information from the US Centers for Disease Control, that now the Ukrainians themselves are a danger to the civilised world. Ukrainian refugees and military personnel sent abroad are bringing infections resistant to antibiotics into Europe.
RESPONSE
The claim is a deliberate distortion of an article published by CBS News, whose headline appears in a screen capture in this disinformation story.
The original CBS News piece is based in a CDC study about what they describe as an “alarming rise in drug-resistant germs in Ukraine”. The study provides an explanation for this: "In Ukraine, the confluence of high prewar rates of antimicrobial resistance, an increase in the prevalence of traumatic wounds, and the war-related strain on health care facilities is leading to increased detection of multidrug-resistant organisms with spread into Europe", it states.
However, neither the study nor the CBS article contain the sentences that appear in this disinformation story, which have been fabricated. Pro-Kremlin media frequently resort to this manipulative technique of supposedly quoting serious Western publications or journalists and then introducing a distorted message as if it were part of the original story. In this case, the goal is to stir up anti-Ukrainian feelings among European audiences.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Ukrainians infect Europe with antibiotic-resistant diseases possibly linked to US biolabs, that Ukrainian refugees provoked a record outbreak of HIV in Poland, or that an increase in atypical infections in the EU may be a sign of US military activity.