Online posts in Kenya make false claims about origin of country’s mpox outbreak

As worldwide cases of mpox cases surge, online misinformation, conspiracy theories and homophobic comments are harming efforts to bring the epidemic under control in Africa. Social media users in Kenya have blamed the LGBTQ+ community for spreading the virus they referred to as "gay pox". Others claim Kenyan youth who attended a summer festival in July and who formed the backbone of anti-government protests that erupted in June caused the outbreak. Some posts circulated a fabricated memo alleging staff at a leading media organisation were infected. But health experts and government officials citing official data have rejected the claims as false.

Kenya's Nation Media Group (NMG) was the subject of an X post published on August 21, 2024, with what was portrayed as an internal memo purportedly alerting staff to rising cases of mpox within the organisation.

The post’s caption claimed management attributed the "spread" of mpox at one of the group’s companies – the television channel NTV – to "LGBT acts" and "issued a strong warning on the employees who are actively engaging in such acts (sic)".

The purported memo, which claimed three mpox cases had been confirmed at NTV owing to inappropriate sexual conduct, appeared in other posts here and here.

On the same day, another post on X circulated with a digital card featuring the logo of Kenyan news website "Kenyans.co.ke", claiming that the country’s mpox outbreak was traced to a festival called "Summer Tides" held in Kenya’s coastal area of Diani in July.

The graphic included the image of Patrick Amoth, Kenya's director general of health, implying the remarks were his. The caption also included the pejorative term "gay pox" to describe the virus.

Yet another X post blamed the mpox outbreak on the Gen Z-led anti-government protests spearheaded by the nation’s youth in June and July 2024.

An image of young men with their faces covered in lesions, one of the physical symptoms of mpox, accompanied the post.

"MPOX cases are on the rise among young people following MAANDAMANO protests. This underscores the need for safe practices and awareness. Don’t let ignorance spread faster than the disease. MPOX at NMG (sic)," reads the caption.

Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, is caused by a virus transmitted to humans through infected animals. It can also be passed between humans through close physical contact.

There are two subtypes of mpox, known as clades: the more virulent and deadlier Clade 1a, endemic in central Africa, and its offshoot Clade 1b, which has surfaced in East Africa and prompted the WHO to declare its highest international alert level (archived report).

Clade 2 is endemic in West Africa.

Based on research, experts and official data from health authorities, AFP Fact Check found the claims circulating in Kenya are baseless and misleading.

Fabricated memo

Firstly, NMG dismissed the purported memo circulating online as "fake".

"Please note that there have been no reported cases of mpox at Nation Media Group, and as such, no advisories concerning the disease have been issued to staff," NMG said in a statement issued on X on August 21, 2024 (archived here).

Two days later, Kenya’s Ministry of Health confirmed the country had recorded only two cases of mpox since July 31, 2024. The bogus memo claimed three NMG staff were infected.

According to the government, the first case was a 42-year-old traveller who crossed from Uganda into Rwanda via Kenya while the second one was an adult male truck driver who was screened at the Kenya-Uganda border (archived here).

"To date, a total of 42 samples have been submitted to our laboratories for mpox disease testing out of which 40 samples have tested negative for the disease. In addition, we have screened a total of 426,438 travellers at our various Ports of Entry across the country," reads the press statement issued by health officials on August 23, 2024.

Since then, the government has recorded two more cases (archived here).

Summer festival

News website Kenyans.co.ke told AFP Fact Check that the digital card claiming the government traced mpox to the Summer Tides festival is also "fake".

A search on the organisation’s website and Instagram account found nothing online linking the music festival in Diani on July 5-6 to mpox (archived here).

However, the aim was likely to smear those who attended the event, which was marked by anti-government protest chants from predominantly young festivalgoers, broadly referred to as "Gen Z".

Similarly, other posts falsely linked Kenya's mpox cases to the June and July demonstrations led by thousands of disgruntled youths demanding the withdrawal of the 2024 Finance Bill that would have increased taxes.

Under pressure, Kenyan President William Ruto eventually withdrew the proposed bill (archived here).

One of the posts promoting this false claim included an image purportedly showing infected young men.

However, the individuals are almost identical in appearance; the lesions are only visible on their faces; and the man in the front has unusually long fingers --- signs of a computer-generated image.

AI detector tool Hugging Face confirmed the image was likely to be a digital creation.

'Gay pox' slur

While claims that mpox only affects the LGBTQ+ community are old, they are also false – and in the case of Kenya, a natural next step to deter protests.

An investigation by Africa Uncensored in July had revealed signs of a coordinated online campaign designed to discredit anti-government protesters in the majority Christian nation by trumpeting the idea they "were focused on advancing LGBTQIA+ agenda rather than opposing the finance bill" (archived here).

Many posts making spurious claims about mpox have also referred to the virus as "gay pox".

But Richard Martinello, a professor of medicine specialising in infectious diseases at Yale University, told AFP Fact Check that mpox “infection is not based on sexual orientation”.

"There is no infectious disease in the world whose transmission is limited by a person’s sexual orientation. It is close, skin-to-skin contact which can lead to the spread of mpox," Martinello said.

In May 2022, mpox infections surged worldwide, mostly affecting gay and bisexual men (archived here).

However, WHO informed the public the virus “can affect anyone who comes into close prolonged contact with an infected individual or their infected belongings”.

WHO further warned against discrimination against individuals for the outbreak based on their sexual orientation.

"Stigmatising people because of a disease is never ok. Anyone can get or pass on monkeypox (now mpox), regardless of their sexuality," WHO warned.

Additionally, French epidemiologist Antoine Gessain has observed that a slightly different virus from Claude 1 and Claude 1 b is raging in the Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo "in a heterosexual population with multiple partners of people working in mines and young adults and sex workers".

"It is this mutated virus that is currently spreading in the countries bordering the East of the DRC, such as Burundi," Gessain told AFP.