WHO cautions against use of Madagascar anti-virus potion

The World Health Organization on Thursday suggested governments to clinically test a natural drink touted by Madagascar’s President Andry Rajoelina as a treatment in opposition to coronavirus.

The Covid-Organics infusion is derived from artemisia — a plant with confirmed anti-malarial properties — and different indigenous herbs.

Rajoelina hopes to distribute the infusion throughout West Africa and past, claiming it cures COVID-19 sufferers inside 10 days.

Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Niger have already obtained consignments of the potion. Others resembling Tanzania have expressed curiosity.

But the World Health Organization (WHO) has repeatedly warned that there are not any printed scientific research of the natural tea and that its results haven’t been examined.

“We would caution and advise countries against adopting a product that has not been taken through tests to see its efficacy,” WHO Africa Director Matshidiso Moeti mentioned in a press briefing on Thursday, calling on Madagascar to take the drink “through a clinical trial”.

Moeti mentioned that in 2000, African governments had dedicated to taking “traditional therapies” via the identical scientific trials as different medicine.

“I can understand the need, the drive to find something that can help,” Moeti mentioned. “But we would very much like to encourage this scientific process in which the governments themselves made a commitment.”

South Africa’s Health Minister Zweli Mkhize on Wednesday mentioned Madagascar had reached out for “help” with scientific analysis.

“Our scientists would be able to assist with this research,” Mkhize tweeted, including that South Africa would solely “get involved in a scientific analysis of the herb”.

The nation has the very best variety of coronavirus instances in sub-Saharan Africa, with 7,808 infections and 153 fatalities recorded so far.

Neighbouring eSwatini — a tiny landlocked nation wedged between South Africa and Mozambique — mentioned it might not take into account Rajoelina’s tonic in the meanwhile.

“It is important as a country to first ascertain where such herbal products have been tested,” she mentioned Health Minister Lizzie Nkosi on Thursday.

“We have to do adequate proper research and be sure that the product works.”

To date eSwatini has reported 123 instances of coronavirus, together with two deaths.

Meanwhile, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has debunked claims that it had ordered a package deal of Covid-Organics from a “third country”.

“We are aware that several claims of a COVID-19 cure have been made in different parts of the world,” ECOWAS mentioned in an announcement on Wednesday.

“But we can only support and endorse products that have been shown to be effective through scientific study.”