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DISINFO: Monkeypox spread through 4 US laboratories in Nigeria

DISINFORMATION CASE DETAILS

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Biological weapons Virus / bacteria threat laboratory health Conspiracy theory

DISINFO: Monkeypox spread through 4 US laboratories in Nigeria

SUMMARY

The source of the monkeypox virus in Nigeria was under the supervision of the United States and its biological laboratories.

.. “The monkeypox virus came from Nigeria, where at least four Washington-controlled biological laboratories operate and from there the outbreak of the new virus began.

RESPONSE

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about US bio laboratories which is part of a continuous disinformation campaign led by the Kremlin, about biological laboratories in Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine and other countries, and now accelerated with the new outbreak of monkeypox.

There have also been other monkeypox outbreaks in the past, discrediting the idea that the current outbreak is something new or intentionally planned. The WHO says that a monkeypox outbreak occurred in Nigeria in 2017 with 218 cases. Since 1970, outbreaks have been reported in nine other countries in central and western Africa, each brought over by human travellers or imported animals.

As for the idea that monkeypox escaped from a lab, "there is absolutely no basis for that claim at all", Prof Peter Horby, director of the Pandemic Sciences Centre at the University of Oxford says. Kristen Nordlund, a spokesperson for the CDC, said the “monkeypox "was not created in a lab” as it was first discovered in 1958 "when two outbreaks of a pox-like disease occurred in colonies of monkeys."

Read similar cases of disinformation in the database claiming that COVID-19 was released from a US lab; or that NATO’s biological experiments are a danger for Russia; or that US Biolabs has been developing new biological weapons in Ukraine; or that the US tests biological weapons on Ukrainians to further attack Russia; or that US-controlled Biolabs develop biological weapons under the guise of studying dangerous infections; or that the Masters of Darkness invented COVID-19 and seek world domination.

Disclaimer

Cases in the EUvsDisinfo database focus on messages in the international information space that are identified as providing a partial, distorted, or false depiction of reality and spread key pro-Kremlin messages. This does not necessarily imply, however, that a given outlet is linked to the Kremlin or editorially pro-Kremlin, or that it has intentionally sought to disinform. EUvsDisinfo publications do not represent an official EU position, as the information and opinions expressed are based on media reporting and analysis of the East Stratcom Task Force.

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