Monkeypox is not ‘only circulating in countries distributing Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine’
Multiple social media posts shared hundreds of times claim that the latest outbreak of monkeypox is only occurring in countries that have administered Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine. The posts go on to claim the World Health Organization (WHO) “has not received a single report” of monkeypox from countries not administering the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Medical experts, however, told the AFP there is no evidence linking the virus, which has existed for decades, to the Covid vaccine. As of August 9, 2022, most countries that were administering the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine had not recorded cases of monkeypox. Conversely, several countries — including India, Russia and Venezuela — where the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has not been distributed had reported monkeypox cases