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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Health & medicine fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about health & medicine. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

13,674 published reviews in this topic

Vishvas NewsHealth & medicine

incompletion of PHC building construction in Thoothukudi

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The viral post alleged that a ₹75 lakh primary health centre (PHC) project in Kayalpattinam, in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi district, remained incomplete ten years after its ground-breaking. Vishvas News investigated the status and timeline of that specific building, rather than a different health-centre project. The review reports that its investigation found the claim was false and that the building had been completed and inaugurated.

APA - Austrian Presse AgenturHealth & medicine

Der hohe Anteil falsch-positiver Tests an der Gesamtzahl positiver Schnelltests an manchen Orten ist im Vergleich unüblich und könnte die Vorgehensweise infrage stellen.

Publisher’s rating: Der Anteil der falsch-positiven an den positiven Testergebnissen variiert beträchtlich von Bundesland zu Bundesland. Laut einem Experten der MedUni Wien gibt es herstellerspezifische Unterschiede in der Testqualität, falsch-positive Ergebnisse seien zumeist auf ein falsches Handling oder chargenabhängige Fehler zurückzuführen. Deutschen Wissenschaftern zufolge kann der Einsatz von Antigen-Schnelltests bei Beibehaltung der etablierten Hygienemaßnahmen sinnvoll sein.

The claim concerned reports that some locations had unusually large shares of false-positive rapid antigen tests and that this might call the testing approach into question. APA examined figures from Austrian federal states, checking positive antigen results against follow-up PCR tests. The review says Austria normally verifies a positive antigen result by PCR, and only people whose PCR is also positive continue the quarantine that began after the antigen result. The available state figures varied markedly, but they did not establish one uniform rate. Lower reported false-positive shares included 25 percent in Lower Austria for 11–13 March 2021 and 21 percent in Tyrol, while the Burgenland figure was about 42 percent through 22 March. Upper Austria reported that a negative PCR follow-up occurred “in der Regel bei etwa 50 Prozent” of positive antigen tests. The review cautions that some figures were extracts or changing totals, and that data from other states had not arrived by the fact-check’s completion. The review also says Lower Austria’s health directorate could not confirm media reports of an increased number of false positives in Wiener Neustadt; it notes that no representative of the state health staff had commented. A MedUni Vienna laboratory-medicine expert attributed false positives mostly to incorrect handling or batch-related errors, while noting manufacturer-specific differences in test quality. The cited German university-medicine network paper warned that false positives can weigh more heavily in mass testing of healthy people when incidence is low, but concluded that antigen rapid tests can still be useful if established hygiene measures are maintained. Thus, the reported differences merit attention, but the review’s evidence describes variable, qualified state-level figures rather than confirming a general breakdown of the approach.

maharat-newsHealth & medicine

جرعة "ثالثة" من لقاح سينوفارم؟

Publisher’s rating: صحيح

The review says the claim concerns a limited, targeted third dose of Sinopharm in the United Arab Emirates—not a general recommendation that everyone who received two doses should get another. It reports that some recipients showed a weak antibody response after two doses and were invited to receive a third. The review attributes its account to the Washington Post and to statements by Waleed Zaher, an executive at G42 Healthcare, which distributed the vaccine in the UAE: Zaher described an ongoing study involving third doses and said the initiative focused on people who did not respond adequately to vaccination. [S1: “ذكرت صحيفة واشنطن بوست، وهي مصدر هذا المقال، أنّه بعد ظهور استجابة مناعية ضعيفة لدى عدد قليل من متلقّي اللقاح الصيني تمّ دعوتهم لأخذ جرعة ثالثة.”; “وقال المدير التنفيذي للباحثين في مجموعة 42 للخدمات الصحيّة، التي توزع لقاح سينوفارم في الإمارات العربية المتحدة وليد زاهر لإذاعة