Congolese Nobel Peace Prize winner Denis Mukwege.

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Behrouz MEHRI / AFP

  • Denis Mukwege, Congolese gynecologist and 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner, has not resigned from the coronavirus response team in a province of Congo because of manipulation of the figures.

  • False statements are attributed to him and have gone viral on the networks.

  • The Nobel Peace Prize, however, gave the real reasons for his departure.

A renowned doctor who is leaving a body to fight against the coronavirus while expressing doubts about the epidemic?

This is enough to cause a shock on social networks.

Denis Mukwege has indeed resigned from his functions within the response team against the coronavirus mounted in the province of South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Except that the justifications attributed to the 65-year-old doctor and posted on Facebook are completely false.

In a Facebook post shared 1,300 times, dated June 14, an Internet user relayed a falsified statement from the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner. According to the message, the latter would have left the commission so as not to tarnish his reputation.

He was reportedly ordered to report all deaths as coronavirus-related for cash, even though no test was found to be positive.

The post went viral on the networks.

- Facebook screenshot

FAKE OFF

The rumor was launched on Facebook on June 11 by a page followed by nearly 50,000 people, after Doctor Mukwege announced his choice to leave the proceeding.

The original lying message has since been deleted.

In a tweet, the one who has fought for decades against rape committed as a weapon of war, recalled that "statements or statements posted in [his] name not appearing on [his] social networks" were false.

Statements or press releases posted on my behalf not appearing on our social media @PanziFoundation @PanziUSA @MukwegeFound or our official websites https://t.co/ODQFGakgcm https://t.co/0DEwKkzxw1 https://t.co / KekC4StAma https://t.co/f0pTQFf4mr are fake.

@DenisMukwege

- Denis Mukwege (@DenisMukwege) June 15, 2020

On June 10, he announced his decision, in a press release, to resign from the two commissions set up to fight Covid-19 in the South Kivu region in which he was participating.

He gave the real reasons for his choice.

These had no relation to those put forward in the erroneous statements attributed to him.

The gynecologist particularly deplores the "impossibility of having" in the province concerned PCR tests to diagnose the inhabitants.

The man also points to "organizational weaknesses and consistency between the different teams responsible for the response to the pandemic in South Kivu".

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Why this is wrong

  • Fake news

  • Democratic Republic of Congo

  • Nobel Prize of Peace

  • Fake off

  • Covid 19

  • Fact checking

  • World

  • Coronavirus