Last Updated on July 7, 2020 by Team THIP
Quick Take
A facebook post claims ‘America’ has coronavirus vaccine which they use for cattles. So, the current panic against the coronavirus situation is a media creation. The post also shares a photo of the claimed medicine. We investigate and find the claim to be false.
The Claim
A facebook post by a user named Hammad Chaudry reads:
“Just in case you are wondering how much the media controls people, America has been vaccinating cattle for coronavirus for years,
yet the news tells you it’s new and gunna kill you all so go buy mask….”
The post also carries a photo of a medicine bottle Scourguard-4K Vaccine.
The post was made by a facebook user named Hammad Chaudry.
An archived version of the post can be viewed here.
Fact Check
First note: In the comment section of the same post the author has already mentioned that it was a meme by which he most probably intended to mean that it was posted just for fun and he was fully aware that the fact is not true.
We still delve deeper to find out more.
Is there a medicine named Scourguard-4k? What is it used for?
Yes. There is a medicine of that name manufactured by the company named Zoetis Inc., a company that manufactures medicines for animals. The company has listed the medicine on their official website. However, the company clearly mentions that the product is meant for veterinary use only. This corroborate the information written on the bottle (as shown on the image). The company also describes the product as – ” ScourGuard 4K is for vaccination of healthy, pregnant cows and heifers as an aid in preventing diarrhea in their calves caused by bovine rotavirus (serotypes G6 and G10), bovine coronavirus, and enterotoxigenic strains of Escherichia coli having the K99 pili adherence factor “
Can Scourguard-4K actually work against Coronavirus?
This is the same confusion we had seen in earlier misinformation spread about Dettol or another similar vaccine confusion where users picked up the name coronavirus and equated that with the current virus pandemic across the world.
So here is the explanation again. Coronavirus is a term used for a group of virus. It is not the name of a particular virus but the name of a category of virus. There are different types of coronaviruses (such as MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV).
This particular virus that causes the disease Covid – 19 is a type of coronavirus named Novel Coronavirus. World Health Organization (WHO) has now officially named the virus as “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)” .
The medicine in the picture is effective on Bovine Rotavirus ( a particular coronavirus that affects animals)
Is there a vaccine for Human Coronavirus?
As on April 3, 2020, the official statement from World Health Organization (WHO) there is no vaccine invented for the ‘novel’ coronavirus.
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