Health Ministry busts fake news spread by NDTV on India’s Covid vaccine

At a time when the end of the Wuhan virus is in sight as multiple vaccine manufacturers have applied for emergency use, a section of Indian media simply can’t stop spreading doom. A known ‘darling’ of the left-liberal intelligentsia, NDTV was busted by the Ministry of Health after the news channel spread fake news about how the emergency approval for use of vaccines of Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute has been rejected.

NDTV yet again landed in soup thanks to its zeal to propagate fake news as the media house falsely claimed that the Health Ministry has rejected emergency use approvals for vaccines from Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech.

The media house also published a report, where based on sources, NDTV claimed that “Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech’s proposals for emergency vaccine use were not cleared today over inadequate safety and efficacy data.”

Twitter handles of Health Ministry and the PIB fact check were quick to point out that NDTV’s report was fake and that the proposals have not been rejected.

Times of India quoted a senior regulatory official as saying, “Both Bharat Biotech and Serum made their presentations but data from Phase-3 was not there. We have asked the companies to submit updated information from Phase 3.”

The official added, “While Bharat Biotech is conducting Phase-3 studies on 26,000 subjects in India, it has given two doses to around 6,000 participants. We have asked the company to submit whatever data is available from India trials,” while the Serum Institute has been asked to submit the updated data from its local trials.

Perhaps it’s beyond the pay grade of people running NDTV to understand the basic fact that asking for updated data doesn’t amount to the proposals being rejected.

This is not the first time and certainly, not the last time when NDTV has spread fake news. Earlier in May, the media house ran a story which claimed that Indian Jawans were briefly detained and subsequently released by China in Ladakh according to its “sources”. Of course, NDTV didn’t care to confirm this story with the Indian Army who hitting out at the media outlet and asserted that it is nothing but fake news.

Read More: ‘It’s Fake News,’ Indian Army rips into NDTV for claiming that China detained Indian soldiers

Time and again, the same cabal of media outlets has been found to spread fake news. The Indian government must take steps which seek to curb fake news which is fast becoming a profitable industry.