Accounts on social media circulated a claim alleging an HIV epidemic in Syria and accusing the Ministry of Health of imposing a blackout on the number of cases, attaching figures attributed to the National AIDS Control Program that included 617 confirmed cases and 212 previous infections.
The Kashaf team reviewed official government websites and statements issued by the Ministry of Health, and found that the figures in the claim date back to an official statement the ministry published on December 1, 2025, marking World AIDS Day. In it, the ministry explained that it was following 617 patients living with the virus, and that the number of infections detected during 2025 reached 212, compared with 87 infections during 2024.
Why is this claim misleading?
Out of temporal context: The claim relied on accurate figures that appeared in an earlier official statement, but re-presented them out of their temporal context in a way that suggests an unusually recent and rising number of cases, which the available official data do not support.
