00:04Hello and welcome to Euronews' fact-checking show The Cube. From conspiracy theories linking
00:09Israel to the Hantavirus outbreak, to claims that it was orchestrated by big pharma groups
00:14to profit from vaccines, false claims about the virus are rampant online.
00:19The Hantavirus outbreak occurred aboard the MV Hondias ship, which set sail from Argentina
00:24on the 1st of April, before eventually docking on the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands
00:29on the 10th of May. Multiple infected passengers have died following contamination, which typically
00:34occurs when humans come into contact with rodent droppings, urine or saliva. Infections can
00:40then be transmitted through human contact. As with the COVID-19 pandemic, online users have
00:45been sharing false claims, including that the word Hantavirus means scam or fake in Hebrew.
00:50They have used this as purported evidence to support conspiracy theories, which accuse Israel
00:55of orchestrating the outbreak. In reality, the term they are referring to is
00:59Hakhtah, not Hantah, a word derived from Arabic. The virus' name actually stems from South Korea's
01:05Hantan River, a hotspot for an outbreak of the virus in the 1970s. Elsewhere, online users have
01:11spread false claims alleging that the antiparasitic drug ivermectin can be used to treat Hantavirus.
01:18Now, ivermectin was touted during the pandemic as a cure for COVID-19, but its use as a cure for
01:23Hantavirus,
01:23and coronavirus is not supported by scientific evidence, as experts we spoke to confirmed.
01:29Separately, online users are saying that it's suspicious that in 2024, US pharmaceutical company
01:35Moderna was developing a vaccine to treat Hantaviruses, bearing in mind that the company
01:40also developed one to treat COVID. They have framed this as evidence that the company played a part
01:45in calculating the current outbreak. It is normal for companies like Moderna to work on vaccines for
01:50like pathogens like Hantavirus, which have been around for decades.
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