COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) – Sri Lanka’s health minister, who has been criticized for ingesting and endorsing a herbal syrup made by a magician, tested positive for COVID-19.
A Ministry of Health official confirmed on Saturday that Pavithra Wanniarachchi had become the highest official infected with the virus. She and her immediate contacts were asked to do self-quarantine.
Doctors said there was no scientific basis for the syrup as a remedy for the coronavirus. It is said to contain honey and nutmeg.
Thousands of people gathered in long lines in the city of Kegalle, northeast of the capital Colombo, in December to get the syrup, a few days after Wanniarachchi and several other government officials publicly consumed it.
The maker of the syrup said he got the formula through his divine powers. In local media, he claims that the Hindu goddess Kaali appeared to him in a dream and gave the recipe to save humanity from the coronavirus.
Sri Lanka is accustomed to taking both ordinary medicine and indigenous alternative remedies to cure diseases.
Meanwhile, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa announced on Saturday that Sri Lanka will receive the first stock of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from India on January 27.
He said India was providing this stock for free and that its government was making arrangements to buy more vaccines from India, China and Russia.
Sri Lanka on Friday approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine amid doctors’ warnings that health workers at the front should be vaccinated quickly to prevent the medical system from collapsing. The first vaccine has been approved for emergency use in Sri Lanka.
The Ministry of Health says the vaccination will start in mid-February.
Sri Lanka saw a new outbreak of the disease in October when two bunches – one centered at a clothing factory and the other at the main fish market – emerged in Colombo and its suburbs.
Sri Lanka reported 52,964 cases with 278 deaths.
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This story has been corrected to show that the city where people lined up for the raid was Kegalle.
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