COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) – The Sri Lankan Minister of Health, who has been criticized for consuming and approving an herbal syrup made by a wizard, tested positive for COVID-19.
A Ministry of Health official confirmed on Saturday that Pavithra Wanniarachchi became the highest-ranking official to be infected with the virus. She and her immediate contacts have been asked to be quarantined.
Doctors have said there is no scientific basis for syrup as a remedy for coronavirus. It is said to contain honey and nutmeg.
Thousands of people gathered in long queues in December in the city of Kegalle, northeast of the capital Colombo, to obtain the syrup, just days after Wanniarachchi and several other government officials consumed it publicly.
The syrup maker said he got the formula through his divine powers. In local media, he claimed that the Hindu goddess Kaali appeared to him in a dream and gave the recipe to save humanity from the coronavirus.
Sri Lankans are accustomed to taking both regular medicine and indigenous alternative drugs to cure diseases.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa announced that Sri Lanka will receive the first stockpile of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from India on 27 January.
He said India is giving away this stock for free and his government is making arrangements to buy more vaccines from India, China and Russia.
On Friday, Sri Lanka approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine amid warnings from doctors that they had to quickly inoculate front-line health workers to prevent the medical system from collapsing. The vaccine was the first to be approved for emergency use in Sri Lanka.
The Ministry of Health says inoculation will begin in mid-February.
Sri Lanka has witnessed a new outbreak of the disease in October, when two groups (one focused on a garment factory and the other on the main fish market) emerged in Colombo and its suburbs.
Sri Lanka has reported 52,964 cases with 278 fatalities.
___
This story has been corrected to show that the city where people lined up to get the syrup was Kegalle.
___
Follow all AP pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic, https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak