Claim: A video shows school girls coughing and wincing in pain at a hospital after receiving the HPV vaccine.
Fact: The claim is false; the viral video predates the ongoing HPV vaccination campaign. It first appeared online in May 2024 in the context of tear gas shelling at a school in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).
Amid the HPV vaccination drive in parts of the country, X user @MAbdullahGul shared a video of school girls in a hospital ward, writing:
“👩🏼🎓سکولوں میں زبردستی ویکسینیشن کے بعد کئی بچیوں کی طبیعت خراب ہو گئی اور اُنہیں اسپتال منتقل کرنا پڑا
🤲خدارا! اپنے بچوں کے معاملے میں صاف اور دو ٹوک موقف اختیار کریں
☢️دنیا کے سب تجربے ہمیشہ ہم غریبوں پر ہی کیے جاتے ہیں💔
💉سیلاب زدگان کیلیے مدد نہیں پر مغرب فری ویکسین دے رہا ہے”
[Translation: 👩🏼🎓After forced vaccination in schools, several girls fell ill and had to be transferred to the hospital
🤲For God’s sake! Take a clear and firm stance in the matter of your children
☢️All the world’s experiments are always conducted on us poor people💔
💉No help for flood victims, but the West is giving free vaccines]
The video was widely shared online with similar captions, alleging that the girls in the video were suffering after being inoculated with the HPV vaccine.
HPV vaccination drive in Pakistan
On 15 September 2025, Pakistan’s Health Minister, Mustafa Kamal, launched the country’s first Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination campaign. The campaign commenced on the 15 and will continue till 27 September. “In the first phase, 13 million girls from Punjab, Sindh, Islamabad Capital Territory and Pakistan-administered Kashmir will receive a single dose of the Chinese-made HPV vaccine, Cecolin,” reported The Guardian. The article added that “50% of girls in the target age group do not attend school, so temporary vaccination centres have been set up in neighbourhoods to ensure they can also receive the vaccine.”
On 18 September, former health minister, Dr Nadeem Jan, urged measures to prevent refusals. “A blanket start could imperil future gains in our quest to ensure 90 per cent coverage. We should encourage modelling this vaccination through our kin, influential figures’ children, and social media activists,” Dr Jan suggested, as reported by Dawn.
The viral claim being fact-checked appears to have originated in context of the ongoing HPV vaccination campaign.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check reverse-searched keyframes of the viral video and found the video shared on X as early as 9 May by journalist and Supreme Court reporter Basharat Raja. His post stated the following: “یہ بھی ڈڈیال کا کلپ ہے جہاں پولیس اور سویلین کپڑوں میں ملبوس نامعلوم افراد کی طرف سے سکولوں پر آنسو گیس کا بے تحاشا استعمال کیا گیا جس سے سالانہ امتحانات میں مشغول طالبات بے ہوش ہو گئی”
[Translation: This is also a clip from Dadyal where tear gas was excessively used by police and unidentified individuals dressed in civilian clothes on schools, causing female students engaged in annual examinations to faint.]
The video was also shared on TikTok and YouTube on the same day, with captions stating that the police fired tear gas at a girls’ school in Dadyal, a tehsil in Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
We then searched for news reports to gather further context about the incident. According to Dawn, police detained around 70 activists to prevent a ‘long march’ announced by the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee. This prompted the group to call a “shutter-down and wheel-jam” strike across the region on 10 May 2024. The protests were part of a wider movement against high taxes levied on electricity bills in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).
The Dawn report further added, “In Mirpur’s Dadyal tehsil, the protests of over a dozen activists in overnight raids provoked clashes after traders held a protest at Maqbool Butt Shaheed Chowk. The teargas shells lobbed by the police also landed in a school and deteriorated the condition of several girls.”
While the Dawn article did not include the video in question, it mentioned the same school incident in Dadyal the video was linked to in 2024. However, since it appeared online as early as May 2024, it is unlikely to be connected to the ongoing HPV vaccination campaign.
Virality
The claim was shared here, here, here, and here on Facebook. Archived here, here, here, and here.
On X, it was shared here, here, and here. Archived here, here, and here.
On Instagram, it was shared here, here, here, here, and here. Archived here, here, here, here, and here.
It was also shared here (archive) on TikTok.
Conclusion: The viral video appeared online as early as May 2024 in context of tear gas shelling at a school in AJK. It has no connection to the ongoing HPV vaccination campaign.
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Background image in cover photo: X
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