What was claimed
A vaccine for coronavirus was made in 2001.
Our verdict
The vaccine pictured is one for dogs for canine coronavirus. It does not protect against Covid-19 and is not for humans.
An image of a dog vaccine for a different coronavirus has gone viral
23 April 2020
We’ve seen a number of posts on Facebook, each shared thousands of times, claiming that there was a vaccine for coronavirus created back in 2001.
The image in the post shows a vial of a vaccine, but not for SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus which causes Covid-19. The vaccine pictured is Nobivac Canine 1-Cv, a vaccine for dogs. The vaccine is administered by vets to protect dogs against diseases caused by canine coronavirus infection, not the new coronavirus causing the current pandemic.
Canine coronavirus is not the same as SARS-CoV-2. Canine coronavirus doesn’t affect people, and is a gastrointestinal disease, not a respiratory one.
If you zoom in on the image, you can see that the label says “Canine Coronavirus Vaccine”, and the US Vet License is 165A, showing that this is not a vaccine for humans.
A number of groups are working on vaccines for humans against the novel coronavirus, but at the time of writing, none are ready for use yet.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the vaccine shown is for dogs, and doesn’t protect against Covid-19.