Twitter has deleted an account which falsely claimed to be a BBC breaking news service and put out an alert saying that Prime Minister Boris Johnson had died.
The tweet was retweeted by journalists across the world before Twitter stepped in and banned the user.
Hundreds of people retweeted the tweet which appeared to come from a BBC Breaking News account.
Boris Johnson was hospitalized on Sunday after suffering the symptoms of Covid-19 for 10 days and was moved into intensive care on Monday - where he remains.
A spokesman for the UK's independent fact checking charity Full Fact said: "A Twitter account impersonating the BBC has claimed that, following his hospitalisation due to Covid-19, Boris Johnson has died.
"Boris Johnson has not died. This Twitter account is a fake, posing as a BBC account.
"The tweet has since been deleted for violating Twitter’s rules.
"Evidence the account is fake includes the fact that it claims to be the BBC Breaking News account despite being unverified. There is a verified BBC Breaking News account which has the blue tick next to it.
"The Twitter handle is also a giveaway: the fake account is @BBCbreaki while the real account is @BBCBreaking.
"The post was retweeted hundreds of times before being deleted, including by verified journalists in Canada and Australia."
