Covid: She used 'magic potion', positive the Sri Lankan minister

Just last month, thousands lined up in the city of Kegalle, northwest of Colombo in Sri Lanka, to get a dose of the 'potion' which, according to the Minister of Health who had publicly taken it, protected from covid.

Today the news that the same head of health, Pavithra Wanniarachchi, tested positive for covid-19 after two tests and is in isolation.

Yet the scientific community had warned against the administration of that product presented as an antidote to covid: a syrup based on honey and nutmeg, prepared - its producers told the local media - following indications of a divine nature, namely those that Hindu goddess Kaali had dictated by appearing in a dream to one of them.

A recipe to save humanity from the coronavirus, without scientific basis however, but which even the Minister of Health had embraced, unaware that it would have been she who would have proved its ineffectiveness.In Sri Lanka it is not unusual for the population to resort to 'witchcraft 'to cure himself and for this reason the fact that the Minister of Health herself had taken in front of the cameras that homemade remedy but of divine inspiration had not caused much fanfare.

Now, however, after the infection by the minister, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa seems to have run for cover: he announced that the country will receive the first doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from India on Tuesday 27 January.

These are doses that India for the moment is making available for free, while the government has started negotiations for an agreement to purchase the drug, from India itself but also China and Russia, to launch a vaccination campaign starting from mid-February. .