Facebook removes misleading post on COVID-19 by a doctor on Karnataka govt's request

Social networking site Facebook on Thursday removed a post of a doctor that offered misleading medical advice including a blanket drug prescription to COVID-19 patients on its social networking account. This comes after the Karnataka health department immediately wrote to Facebook to remove the post as it could mislead the public during the challenging time of Coronavirus pandemic.

The post of cardiologist Sanjeev Kumar was taken off the social media platform as it violated facebook's 'misinformation and harm policy'. The Hyderabad-based doctor had posted videos and messages, including a blanket prescription with names of 11 drugs for 'very sick patients' with low oxygen saturation who were unable to find a bed. In a post on July 8, Kumar suggested the dosage of every drug and the times it needed to be taken by the COVID-19 patient. His post was shared by more than 4,000 Facebook users.

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Reacting to Kumar's post the Karnataka health department wrote to Facebook on Tuesday and asked it to take down the post as it violated existing guidelines of medical prescriptions. The state health department was continuously monitoring the doctor's online activity on facebook and once he shared the post, the department swiftly reacted to the online prescription given by Kumar and got it removed.

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As per the directives issued by the Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry, all the states and union territories need to have a dedicated Coronavirus fact-check unit to burst fake posts, rumours and doctored videos on a daily basis about the virus. All these states further need to send a detailed report to the Centre on the nature of viral posts claiming Covid-19 cure or management and steps taken to address the issue.

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COVID-19 situation in India so far

India's total COVID-19 cases on Saturday went up to 10,38,716 out of which 3,58,692 are active coronavirus cases. While 6,53,751 patients have successfully recovered from the lethal infection and 26,273 people have died so far from the disease.

Maharashtra continues to be the worst-hit state with 2,92,589 total coronavirus cases. On Friday the state clocked a whopping 8,308 new cases of Coronavirus disease, taking the total death toll due to COVID-19 to 11,452 after 258 patients succumbed to the illness in the last 24 hours. The number of recovered patients jumped by 2,217 in the same period to reach 1,60,357. 

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