A drink made from a bright-green fern-like plant is being promoted in African countries as the go-to cure for COVID-19.
But detractors, with undisguised scorn, dismiss claims for the concoction as at best useless — and at worst dangerous.
Madagascar President Andry Rajoelina is the promoter-in-chief of the substance, marketed as Covid-Organics and sold in the form of a herbal infusion.
Asserting that the Madagascan brew has the potential to “change history”, Rajoelina has widely distributed it in his Indian Ocean island nation and exported it to many parts of Africa.
The East African countries of Tanzania and the Comoros are among enthusiastic customers as well as Guinea-Bissau and Equatorial Guinea on the Atlantic coast.
Guinea-Bissau President Umaro Sissoco Embalo made a point of personally taking delivery of his country’s Covid-Organics order at the airport.
Artemisia annua has a long history in its native China, where scientists discovered an active ingredient that made the plant a front-line weapon in the fight against malaria.
– Flying off shelves –
Covid-Organics seems to be selling like hotcakes in Madagascar, costing 30 euro cents (35 US) for a 33-centilitre (11-ounce) bottle.
In Senegal, Belgian agronomist Pierre Van Damme markets the product under the label Le Lion Vert (The Green Lion).
“Since the start of the epidemic, demand for artemisia has gone through the roof,” Van Damme said. “But since the Madagascan president’s declarations it’s been crazy.”
Sales jumped 15-fold in a few weeks, forcing Van Damme to hire eight staff to handle some 2,000 orders a day.
As demand surges for the purported coronavirus remedy, prices have followed suit.
Ibrahima Diop, a producer in the Dakar area, says the retail price has soared by two-thirds.
“I’m swamped,” grinned Haoua Wardougou, an apothecary in a working-class district of the Chad capital N’Djamena. “I have lots of customers who want to buy some, but I’m out of stock.”
.AFP
