The minister of health of the Belgian region of Wallonia, Christie Morreale, described it as the “worst” case of fraud since the beginning of the pandemic in Belgium.
The doctor is said to have offered his services in “all four corners of Wallonia” and sometimes even accepted payment for vaccinations that he never carried out.
The man had allegedly registered “a suspicious number” of people, whom he claimed to have vaccinated. According to Morreale, it was simply impossible that he administered vaccines to such an “astronomical” number of people located across the region.
The authorities are not only investigating the doctor, but also several of his patients. Their vaccination certificates were suspended until further notice.
While the case in Belgium involves an actual doctor giving out fake vaccines, the opposite seems to be true for a similar case in Germany. A theologist is said to have claimed to be a doctor around the area of Munich and allegedly administered or prescribed over 1,400 doses of the Covid-19 vaccines. The incident took place in vaccination centres in the towns of Rosenheim and Karlsfeld.
The man is accused of having committed several offences: Dangerous and deliberate bodily harm, violations against the law on non-medical practitioners, falsification of documents, fraud, and abuse of titles, according to investigators on Tuesday. The patients of the 50-year-old man appear to be well.
In summer, the case of a nurse in Frisia who administered syringes filled with saline solution instead of the vaccine in a vaccination centre already made the rounds in German newspapers. The responsible public prosecutor’s office estimated that a “low, two-digit number” of people fell victim to this, but as a safety measure, thousands of people received additional jabs.
