Fact check: 40 cases of Ebola registered in Italy?

Dear Italy vacationers! First of all, the information: DON'T BE FEAR! If we take a closer look here, we immediately notice that this statement sounds familiar: supposedly 40 cases of Ebola have been registered in Italy. Not only the statement, but also the preview image that can be seen looks more than familiar to us.

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This is what it says here: “It was only a matter of time before something like this would happen. The Spanish government would be well advised to reject further admissions of immigrants. Explicitly with regard to tourism”

We've received several inquiries about a blog article in the last few days and if you look closely, you'll quickly find the culprit: the Facebook reminder function! The blog article is about 4 years old [1]:

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And how true was the text back in 2014?

Towards the beginning of July 2014, the news was spread through various sources that 40 registered cases of the Ebola virus had occurred in Italy. Ebola is a highly dangerous infection that quickly leads to death and has not yet been successfully treated.

This report was never confirmed and was simply a rumor at the time.

It was also noticeable that in July 2014 this “news” was conveyed almost exclusively via blogs. The headlines of these articles usually go in a clear direction:

 

“The plague comes with the Africans: 40 Ebola cases in Italy” or “Deadly Negro disease Ebola has arrived in Italy”

If you looked in the press landscape for further sources about Ebola infections in Italy, you could n't find them on the major news portals. Only the Neue Züricher Zeitung reported as follows about a refugee ship off the coast of Sicily: “ Excitement because of Ebola false alarm ”.

The only link to the “cry for help from Tuscany” quoted above leads to a rather dubious-looking Italian website “VNews24”, which also does not name any sources for its claims other than rumors. If you searched the internet for a travel warning for Italy, you found references to the threat of terrorism, theft and traffic, but no Ebola warning.

On the website of the Italian Ministry of Health the last entry on the subject of Ebola is (from April 18, 2014):

“Ebola virus, no danger for Italy”

A full translation of the relevant page from the Italian Ministry of Health can be found > HERE <

The article was already in the “disinformation” category in 2014.


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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )