In the light of the increasing cases of COVID-19 in India and across the globe, a post accompanying an image of patients lying on the floor with bare minimum medical facilities is being circulated across social media platforms with a claim that the image shows the situation in Pakistan. Through this article, let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Image showing patients lying on the floor with bare minimum medical facilities in Pakistan.
Fact: The image actually shows patients being treated for typhoid in villages near the Maharashtra-Gujarat border. These patients are being treated under tents with bare minimum medical facilities as the hospitals are filled with COVID-19 patients. Multiple regional news outlets have reported this. This image has nothing to do with Pakistan. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Reverse search of the image shared in the post led us to a Marathi regional news video on YouTube dated 20 April 2021 which reported visuals similar to the image in the post. As per this video, these visuals are from villages that are on the Maharashtra side of the Maharashtra-Gujarat border and also patients are suffering from Typhoid and not COVID-19.
Taking a cue from the YouTube video, Google search with relevant keywords led us to a Hindi news article that published images similar to the visuals in the post. As per this article, the images show patients suffering from Typhoid, which has hit 10-12 bordering villages and they are being treated under tents as the hospital beds are filled with corona patients.
Further search led us to a Gujarati regional news article which published the same image as in the post. Even according to this article, the image shows patients being treated for typhoid near Gujarat-Maharashtra bordering villages. All these establish the fact that the image is from India and not Pakistan.
The same image is being shared on social media attributing it to Gujarat, although the image shows patients from villages that are mostly on the Maharashtra side of the Gujarat-Maharashtra border.
To sum it up, image of typhoid patients being treated under tents near Maharashtra-Gujarat border is passed off as from Pakistan.
