The newspaper did not publish such information on its front page; propagandists edited the cover of the publication.
Monkeypox could spread across Europe through Ukraine — this is the claim being spread by Russian sources. According to them, an article in The Independent allegedly states that due to the overwhelming number of wounded soldiers, the Ukrainian medical system may not be able to handle the challenge of a potential pandemic and could become the epicenter of the virus’s spread.
However, this news is fabricated, and The Independent did not publish such information on its front page. An image of the newspaper’s cover from August 16 is available online, with the main headline reading «British tanks push Russian forces back into Russia.» In the original, instead of a photo of medics and a headline about monkeypox in Ukraine, there is an image of three girls and a news story about A-level exams, which British students take upon finishing school. The article discusses that, despite overall improvement in student scores, the gap between private and public school results has widened.
The new outbreak of monkeypox was announced by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on August 14 of this year. The virus is rapidly spreading in African countries—Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda—and was recently detected in Sweden. Symptoms of the disease include headache, fever, and blister-like rashes all over the body. Isolated cases of the virus were recorded in Ukraine two years ago, but there was no epidemic surge. The risk of a monkeypox epidemic in Ukraine is assessed as very low, and the European Union has provided the country with vaccines for high-risk groups (men who have sex with men and healthcare workers), explained Deputy Minister of Health Ihor Kuzin. Therefore, the propagandists’ claims that Ukraine will become the center of the virus’s spread in Europe are completely unfounded.
Another debunking on medical topics can be found in the article «Fake: Ukraine Sold More Than Million Liters of Donor Blood Abroad.»
