A false news article headlined "First Volunteer in UK Corona Virus Trial, Elisa Granato, Dies" was shared by social media users on Sunday, April 26, 2020 (here) (here).
The claim made in this article is untrue.
Elisa Granato was one of the first two volunteers to be injected in a trial of a potential COVID-19 vaccine at Oxford University on Thursday April 23, 2020 (here) (here).
The University of Oxford News Office confirmed to Reuters on April 26 that she was “alive and well”.
Granato and Edward O’Neill received an injection of a vaccine labelled “ChAdOx1 nCoV-19”.
The Oxford scientists said last week that large-scale production capacity was being put in place to make millions of doses of the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 shot, even before trials show whether it is effective (here).
VERDICT
False. Elisa Granato, a volunteer in a trial of a potential COVID-19 vaccine at Oxford University, is alive and well, the University confirmed to Reuters on April 26, 2020.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here .
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.