A False Claim Says Over 1,000 People Infected with AIDS a Day

A claim going viral on social media in the last two weeks said more than 1,000 people were infected with AIDS in one day last month. The claim had been widely shared on social media and commented on by Khmer-speaking social media users. However, we found the claim is false after getting clarification from the health ministry and checking the factsheet published by an international health organization.

SOCIAL MEDIA CLAIM

A claim going viral on social media at the ending days of last month said more than 1,000 people were infected with AIDS and warned how risky wives were facing if their husbands had sexual intercourse with more than their wives.

The claim had been shared almost 20,000 times as many social media users commented on and reacted to it.

Below is the capture of the claim posted on Facebook on July 28, 2023: "More than 1,000 people were infected with AIDS today. What would happen to wives if their husbands have more than one sexual partner.”

Facebook Post | Archived Link

The same claim was also circulated by a Facebook page ឱសថការី Pharmacist on July 31, 2023, leading to more than 500 shares, many comments, and a mixture of reactions.

Facebook Post | Archived Link

Below is a capture of the claim posted by another Facebook page on the end of July and got a lot of shares and comments.

Facebook Post | Archived Link

The same claim can be found here (archived) or another link here (archived) or the third link here (archived).

FACT CHECK

Fact Crescendo Cambodia began debunking the claim by asking clarification from Cambodia’s Ministry of Health and reviewing the data published by international health organizations. Then, we found facts and truth below.

Responding to Fact Crescendo last week, the health ministry spokeswoman Or Vandine dismissed the claim, saying it was not true and urging the claimant to take down this misinformation to stop publish misunderstood.

“This news is fake. The Ministry of Health dismissed the claim and urged the social media users to stop circulating this false news,” Or Vandine told Fact Crescendo via Telegram last Friday via Telegram.

Asked how many cases of AIDS infection are found in Cambodia, Vandine referred to a joint statement released on April 05, 2023 by the National AIDS Authority (NAA), and the National Center for Fighting HIV/AIDS, Dermatology and STD, and the Joint United Nation Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). See the full statement below.

The NAA President Ieng Mouly told Fact Crescendo via Telegram last week that about four people are daily infected with AIDS in Cambodia this year.

He added the newly infected cases rose to 1,400 in 2022 from 1,100 in 2021, nearly 30 percent increase.

Mouly said Cambodia has seen the rise of newly infected cases since 2019 and put more efforts to curb this issue.

As the claim did not mention any specific country, Fact Crescendo reviewed how big number of newly infected cases in the world is.

A factsheet published on UNAIDS’s website shows 39 million people are living with AIDS in the world as of 2022.

The UNAIDS’s factsheet also shows 1.3 million people became the newly infected in 2022, meaning the newly infected cases were between 3,500 and 4,000 every day in the world. See the full figure here.

UNAIDS Fact Sheet | Archived Link

CONCLUSION

Fact Crescendo Cambodia found the claim mentioned earlier is false. A clarification from the health ministry called the claim is not true. A figure from the National AIDS Authority shows some four people become newly infected everyday in Cambodia as the world’s newly infected cases are between 3,500 and 4,000 in daily basis.