Did Mosquitoes Inoculated With Viagra Escape From a Wuhan Laboratory as Alleged?

By Naomi Wanjiku

This screenshot of an article claims that thousands of mosquitoes inoculated with viagra have escaped from a high-security laboratory in Wuhan, China.

A similar claim has been shared here, and here. One of the screenshots indicates the website The Maravi Post published the story.

PesaCheck traced the article on The Maravi Post, and discovered that the website sourced the information from World News Daily Report. The latter has a disclaimer at the bottom of the site that states it is purely a satirical website.

“World News Daily Report assumes all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website — even those based on real people — are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any person, living, dead or undead, is purely a miracle,” the disclaimer states.

Verification

The article itself raises several questions. The first questionable part of the claim is that the Wuhan Institute of Virology announced the security breach. However, after looking through the research institute’s website, in particular the News and Events, Research Progress, and Notice sections, there is no evidence of such an announcement.

The article also quotes Dr Wenzi Ying Yin Jing, as the head researcher of the Wuhan Institute. A listing of the team in charge of the research institute shows that nobody with that name is mentioned.

The director-general of the institute is Yanyi Wang and she has three deputy director generals and a deputy secretary of the Party Committee. The research institute also has several principal investigators.

The photo used in the article to show one of the Wuhan residents that were hospitalised after being bitten by the genetically modified mosquitoes is misleading.

A reverse image search of the man pictured shows that he was a Japanese citizen named Yukichi Chuganji, who died in September 2003. He died at the age of 114 years and 189 days, which earned him the title of the oldest man in Japan and Asia at the time.

No other credible media house has reported about viagra vaccinated mosquitoes escaping from a laboratory in Wuhan.

Verdict

PesaCheck has looked into a screenshot of an article claiming that thousands of mosquitoes inoculated with viagra have escaped from a high-security laboratory in Wuhan, China and finds it to be SATIRICAL.