Did a medical drone delivering drugs crash in Togo during tests? No, that's not true: the story was made up by a fake news site masquerading as satire, it is not real.
The story originated from an article published by News@7 on January 6, 2019 titled "Medical drone delivering drugs from Korle Bu to Ridge Hospital crashes in Togo; Authorities were testing the drone - BREAKING NEWS - Ghana Latest News" (archived here) which opened:
Medical authorities and a technical team testing Medical Drones have had its first drone crashed in Togo.
The exercise took place at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital on Saturday.
The drone was scheduled to deliver medical supplies from Korle Bu to the Ridge Hospital.
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail and they wouldn't have seen the "satire" disclaimer at the bottom of the article:
Medical drone delivering drugs from Korle Bu to Ridge Hospital crashes in Togo; Authorities were testing the drone - BREAKING NEWS - Ghana Latest News
Medical authorities and a technical team testing Medical Drones have had its first drone crashed in Togo. The exercise took place at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital on Saturday. The drone was scheduled to deliver medical supplies from Korle Bu to the Ridge Hospital. Authorities say they lost track of ...
The site comes with a satire warning in the footer:
sat·ire ~ˈsaˌtī(ə)r
noun
the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, OR ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
If you disagree with the definition of satire or have decided it is synonymous with "comedy," you should really just move along.
The picture of the drone used to illustrate the story wasn't even from Africa: it was taken thousands of miles away on Vanuatu in the South Pacific, as can be seen in this article:
Baby is the first child to be given a vaccine delivered by a drone
Joy Nowai lives on Vanuatu - a cluster of islands in the South Pacific The drone took 25 minutes to travel 25 miles (40km) over rugged mountains Once landed, a nurse vaccinated 13 children and five pregnant women A one-month-old baby has become the first child in the world to ever be given a vaccine that was delivered by a commercial drone.
We wrote about news7pm.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:
- Fake News: Prince Charles Did NOT Say He Didn't Know Ghanaians Need Visas When Visiting UK, Did NOT Promise To Do Something About It
- Fake News: Ghanaian Actor Salinko Did NOT Die After Publicity Stunt Went Wrong
- Fake News: Malian 'Spiderman' Did NOT Lose French Citizenship, Does NOT Face Deportation
- Fake News: 19-year-old Super Eagles' Goalkeeper Did NOT Celebrates Son's 17th Birthday
