Debunked: There is no government scheme offering free cheese to recipients of a hantavirus vaccine

A SCREENSHOT OF what appears to be a bizarre news story has been shared widely around the internet, claiming that the government is offering free cheese to people who are first to take a hantavirus vaccine.

The claim, which has been widely shared on social media, including by Irish users, is false.

“Breaking news,” the screenshot begins. “Government to give free cheese for the first recipients of the ‘hantavirus’ vaccine.”

Below, an image shows a photo of a man wearing a mask being injected in the arm as a person off-frame holds up a block of yellow cheese.

“In a unique incentive programme,” the story starts, “officials announce that the first citizens to get vaccinated will receive a complimentary block of cheese.”

This claim is untrue. The screenshot shows that the story was supposedly published by the “Global News Network”.

There are multiple outlets with that name, though no legitimate outlet appears to have published such a story. There is no evidence of such a scheme and no hantavirus vaccine is approved for use in Europe or the Americas.

Nevertheless, the screenshot has been shared dozens of times across social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok and Threads.

Some readers appear to have interpreted the fake news story as an ambiguous form of satire, comparing people who take vaccines with lab mice.

However, as an attempt at satire, it manages to mislead.

Firstly, it falsely implies that people who take vaccines are being experimented on like mice – in fact, vaccines undergo rigorous testing before they are rolled out to the public, even in emergencies like the Covid pandemic.

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Secondly, it implies that governments are encouraging people to take vaccines in response to the hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship that has killed three people — they haven’t.

And thirdly, many readers appear to have taken the faked news story at face value.

“I know I just didn’t read that right!” reads one comment under a version of the faked story, posted by an Irish anti-vaccine influencer and conspiracy theorist. That post has been shared more than 700 times since being posted on 7 May.

“Please tell me this is a joke, or that after reading it 20 times, it really says what I think it says?” the commenter asks.

Oddly, the idea of the government giving out free cheese echoes a real scheme ran in the past by the Irish state, which saw hundreds of tonnes of cheddar given to people through charitable organisations.

Ireland’s Health Protection Surveillance Centre notes that hantaviruses are not found naturally here. Cases have previously been detected in Ireland, very rarely, but only in people who were infected in other countries.

There is, therefore, very little chance that the Irish government is likely to enact a widespread rollout of hantavirus vaccines.

There are currently no licensed vaccines for hantavirus in Europe or the Americas. And while some vaccines are used in Asia, they are designed to combat a different type than the Andes strain which caused the cruise ship outbreak.

Even if there was a vaccine for the Andes strain available in Europe, there would be little need to encourage mass vaccination.

There are no suspected cases of the Andes strain in patients who were not linked with the cruise, and the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that the outbreak poses a low risk to public health. The WHO said there were no signs of a larger outbreak.

The Journal has previously outlined that much of the coverage about the hantavirus has been presented through the lens of the Covid pandemic.

In some cases, this has distorted the importance of the outbreak, which has received outsized media coverage due to occurring on a cruise ship, as well as giving a second wind to pandemic-era conspiracy theories that never panned out.

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