"Man's farts so deadly he kills mosquitoes in a 6m radius" is a headline difficult to resist clicking on.

Unfortunately, it's false.

The attention-grabbing headline ran on news sites worldwide this week, including BBC News and Aotearoa's own New Zealand Herald, despite appearing to originate on a fake news site based in Africa.

According to the report, 48-year-old Ugandan man Joe Rwamirama's flatulence protects anyone near him from malaria-carrying mosquitoes, and he's being paid "millions" to turn it into an insect repellent.

"Imagine buying a Raid can with my face on it," he's claimed to have said.

It wasn't difficult for Newshub to ascertain the story is fake. Using Google's search tools, we were able to determine it first appeared on ihlayanews.com on December 9. Ihlaya News' own Facebook page declares it is a "news parody and satire website".