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Flesh-Eating Bananas (South Africa Version)

Netlore Archive: 2005 and 2011 variants of a forwarded email warning that shipments of bananas are infected with bacteria that cause necrotizing fasciitis ('flesh-eating disease').

Description: Forwarded email / Facebook postings
Circulating since: April 2005 (African version)
Status: False (see details below)


2011 example:
Email text contributed by Lana P., Nov. 24, 2011:

Subject: FW: Bananas
Importance: High

please don't eat bananas for the next 3 weeks

Several deliveries of bananas from uvongo kwa-zulu natal south afica have been infected with necrotizing fasciltis, otherwise known as flesh eating bacteria. Recently this disease has decimated the monkey population in the south coast. We are now just learning that the disease has been able to graft itself to the skin of fruits in the region, most notably the banana which is one of south africas largest exports. Until this finding scientists were not sure how the infection was being transmitted. It is advised not to purchase bananas for the next three weeks!!! If you have eaten a banana in the last 2-3 days and come down with a fever followed by a skin infection seek MEDICAL ATTENTION!!!

The skin infection from necrotizing fasciitis is very painful and eats two to three centimeters of flesh per hour. Amputation is likely, death is possible.. If you are more than an hour from a medical center burning the flesh ahead of the infected area is advised to help slow the spread of the infection. The FDA has been reluctant to issue a country wide warning because of fear of a nationwide panic. They have secretly admitted that they feel upwards of 15,000 South Africans will be affected by this but that these are" Acceptable numbers".

Please forward this to as many of people you care about as possible as we do not feel 15,000 people is an acceptable number.


2005 example:
Email text contributed by B. Bartlett, April 7, 2005:

FW: please don't eat bananas for the next 3 weeks

Several shipments of bananas from Costa Rica have been infected with necrotizing fasciltis, otherwise known as flesh eating bacteria. Recently this disease has decimated the monkey population in Costa Rica. We are now just learning that the disease has been able to graft itself to the skin of fruits in the region, most notably the banana which is Costa Rica's largest export. Until this finding scientist were not sure how the infection was being transmitted. It is advised not to purchase bananas for the next three weeks as this is the period of time for which bananas that have been shipped to the us with the possibility of carrying this disease. If you have eaten a banana in the last 2-3 days and come down with a fever followed by a skin infection seek MEDICAL ATTENTION!!!

The skin infection from necrotizing fasciitis is very painful and eats two to three centimeters of flesh per hour. Amputation is likely, death is possible.. If you are more than an hour from a medical center burning the flesh ahead of the infected area is advised to help slow the spread of the infection. The FDA has been reluctant to issue a country wide warning because of fear of a nationwide panic. They have secretly admitted that they feel upwards of 15,000 South Africans will be affected by this but that these are" Acceptable numbers". Please forward this to as many of people you care about as possible as we do not feel 15,000 people is an acceptable number.


Analysis: False. These are both slightly revised versions of an email hoax that originated in North America in 2000. The timing of its first appearance in South Africa (April 2005) indicates it may have been reposted as an April Fools' prank.

An updated version circulating in Nov.-Dec. 2011 claims the disease carrying bananas come from Uvongo, KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.

As was observed in 2000, both here and on the CDC website, fruit is an unlikely vehicle for the transmission of the bacteria that cause necrotizing fasciitis, colloquially known as the "flesh-eating disease." Consumers need not fear bananas imported from Costa Rica, South Africa, or any other point of origin.

Read more:

Flesh-Eating Bananas Hoax
Netlore Archive, January 2000

The Great Banana Scare of 2000
Timeline of the Internet hoax

Go On, Eat a Banana
News24.com, Cape Town, South Africa, 14 April 2005

Email on 'Infected' Bananas a Hoax
Independent Online, 24 November 2011


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Last updated: 12/02/11


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