DISINFO: Delivery of coronavirus vaccines to Haiti is propaganda aiming to silence criticism of the West
SUMMARY
It is striking that in the middle of this situation including the murder of its president, Haiti has received, how convenient, the first batch from the US of coronavirus vaccines through the COVAX system. It looks like a way to silence the critics. Some countries are trying to sell this propagandistic message of humanitarian aid, of giving a helping hand to poor Haitians.
RESPONSE
By insinuating that the arrival of US-made Moderna coronavirus vaccines to Haiti right after the murder of its president Jovenel Moïse is not coincidental, this disinformation message aims to promote distrust of the West by attributing spurious motives to the distribution of humanitarian aid.
Actually, the delivery of coronavirus vaccines to Haiti had been a priority for some time for regional and international partners, who worried about the country’s lack of a proper vaccination programme amid an increasingly unstable situation. Until 14 July 2021, Haiti was the only country in the American continent without any vaccine dose. Despite this, Haitian authorities rejected over 750,000 vaccines from the World Health Organisation in April, before the epidemic situation worsened significantly.
The first batch was scheduled to arrive in May, but the Haitian government previously missed a key deadline to present essential documentation for processing a shipping order, according to Gavi. Therefore, the final arrival of the vaccines one week after the murder of president Moïse was indeed a coincidence, given the amount of time and effort that such a delivery required.
Contrary to the claim, the distribution of coronavirus vaccines is not propaganda or an attempt to reduce criticism on the West but a global public health necessity. Though the US is the largest vaccine donor to the COVAX system, this mechanism is run by several international organisations such as the WHO, the vaccine alliance GAVI, Unicef and the Center for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation (CEPI). As a result, neither the US nor any other country has direct control over it, in contrast with what is implied in this disinformation story.
When US president Joe Biden announced in May that his country would provide millions of doses to the COVAX system by the beginning of July, he stated that the US “will not use [its] vaccines to secure favours from other countries”, in opposition to the “vaccine diplomacy” practised by other countries.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives in our database, such as claims that the EU doesn’t approve the Sputnik vaccine due to political and artificial prejudices, that recognising vaccines is a political and economical decision, that the EU conditions the aid for Moldova on the ceding of sovereignty, that the West conditions resolving the Syrian humanitarian crisis on its political goals, or that Ukraine needs the war in Donbas to receive financial aid from the IMF.
This disinformation message appeared in the same TV programme as the claim that “The US and Colombia ‘help’ to investigate the murder of Haiti’s president to hide their involvement”.