A foreign Internet news report which claimed that the pilot of the ill-fated MH370 was rescued and was currently in a Taiwan hospital has been categorically denied.

The fake news item by the so-called 'World News Daily' featured a photo of Malaysian deputy director-general of health (medical) Dr Jeyaindran Sinnadurai.

Jeyaindran, however, was erroneously identified as one 'Dr Syed Boon Sulong' who was quoted in the report as saying: "The patient seems to have undergone a lot of stress lately, and the amnesia is probably an unconscious self-defence mechanism."

Jeyaindran, who is currently in Nagpur, India, told Malaysiakini via telephone:

“The photo of me was lifted from a Malaysian website. Whoever was responsible for this report is very cruel and unkind to all the family and relatives of those onboard MH370 for raising false hopes. To me, it is very sad that someone even thought of doing this.

“It is a very irresponsible bit of journalism and it is such false and unverified reports that make one realise that with the advent of the Internet, a lot of things put out are not credible at all.”

He hoped the readers who scan the Internet will realise that very often "… irresponsible people load such reports for reasons best known to themselves".

The false report datelined Taipei and which appeared on Wednesday had claimed that '… the pilot of the infamous flight MH370 of Malaysia Airlines that disappeared in March 2013, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, has mysteriously reappeared in a Taiwan hospital on Monday, suffering from severe dehydration and some type of amnesia'.

It added: 'The 53-year-old pilot was transported at the Taipei Adventist Hospital by a couple of villagers from a nearby town. They claimed to have found the man while he was lying unconscious on the banks of the Tangshui River.

'He finally woke up almost 16 hours after arriving at the hospital, but couldn’t remember his name or how he arrived in Taipei. He was rapidly identified, however, thanks to his fingerprints, instantly attracting a lot of attention from the media and from various Asian governments.

'The doctors who have been treating since his arrival believe that he may be suffering from regressive amnesia, caused by a major stress or life-threatening situation.'

Seach for MH370 still on

Using the photo of Jeyaindran ( photo ) identified as 'Dr Syed Boon Sulong', the article then went on to quote the doctor as saying:

'The patient is still very weak and sick, and his brain seems to be blocking access to a certain part of his memory, in order to protect him from pain that these memories could generate.

'His health is too fragile for the moment, but over time, he should able to remember everything.'

Flight MH370, with 239 passengers and crew on board, vanished from the radar on March 8, 2014 as it flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

To date, only a flaperon (part of the wing) of the plane was found washed ashore on the Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean.

The search for the missing plane is still ongoing in the southern Indian Ocean.

Flight data recovery indicated the plane made a turnback and went missing in the southern Indian Ocean.