AFP / Bolivia
The president, Luis Arce, asked the population this Friday “not to lower their guard” in front of the Covid-19, in the face of fears of a resurgence, and highlighted the use of traditional medicine to fight infections.
“We continue to face the pandemic with possible outbreaks in many countries, we have seen it in Europe and we must be vigilant, we can not lower our guard,” the governor said during the opening of a meeting of indigenous people in the region of Cochabamba (center).
Bolivia has recorded more than 9,000 deaths since March and around 148,600 infected with coronavirus.
Regions and cities such as Santa Cruz (east) and La Paz are taking steps to contain the regrowth they are suffering.
Arce, who claims the knowledge and skills of the native peoples, noted that “we have resorted to these herbs that our brothers knew ancestral to fight the pandemic and we have done so successfully in different nationalities and peoples of our Latin America.” .
Since the first cases of illness were known in the country, the indigenous sectors, mainly Aymara and Quechua, have used different natural products, to which they attribute healing powers.
This population uses plants and trees such as eucalyptus, wira wira and chamomile as antibacterial and expectorant inputs, which, according to native shamans, help to create and strengthen the immune system.
In parallel, a neighborhood in the heart of the city of La Paz has been undergoing epidemiological control since this Friday and for a week, in the face of a focused resurgence of coronavirus cases.
Brigades of municipal personnel carry out the washing of supply markets in the neighborhood of Miraflores, where are a network of public hospitals, the legendary stadium Hernando Siles and the main dependencies of the High Command of the Armed Forces.
Market entry is limited to a maximum of 30% of its capacity, in a so-called “epidemiological blockade”.
The Santa Cruz region is also taking steps to strengthen its health care system, after its government declared earlier this week that it faces a “second wave” of the pandemic.