The number of Covid-19 patients continues to increase on the island of Madagascar, where the government continues to extol the merits of a miracle herbal tea to fight the pandemic.

With 7,548 officially recorded cases, including 65 deaths, the number of coronavirus patients increased by 50% over the past week, noted Monday, July 20, the director of health emergencies at the WHO, Michael Ryan, during of a press conference in Geneva.

Among the victims of the virus, a deputy from the presidential party as well as a senator died in mid-July, while 11 deputies and 14 other senators were diagnosed positive for Covid-19. A close associate of President Andry Rajoelina has also been infected, said the Madagascan head of state.  

No place in hospitals

Having become in recent weeks one of the main focus of development of the disease, the capital Antananarivo has been confined again since July 5. The Analamanga region, of which it is part, was closed to all traffic until July 20.

While the government waits for the peak of the epidemic for the end of August, the hospitals of Antananarivo are already saturated. Covid-19 patients are pouring in and beds are starting to run out. "We only receive serious cases", declared Tuesday Nasolotsiry Raveloson, the director of the Andohatapenaka hospital, specializing in the reception of coronavirus patients.

The disowned Minister of Health 

The urgency is such that the Minister of Health, Ahmad Ahmad, on Monday sent an appeal for help to international donors. In a letter, which leaked to the press, he asked for 337 respirators, oxygen cylinders, more than 2 million surgical masks, 697,000 pairs of gloves and 533,200 gowns.

"The Covid-19 epidemic has been evolving in recent weeks in a very critical fashion in Madagascar, with significant epidemic outbreaks in some regions, in particular in the city of Antananarivo", this letter warns. A message immediately denied by the Madagascan presidency, who disavowed the letter from his minister, saying he was "dismayed" by the appeal for international aid.

The appeal of the Minister of Health "is a personal initiative", taken "without consultation" with the government or the president, insisted on the Madagascan executive.

Anti-Covid herbal tea without respecting barrier gestures

While the authorities attribute the increase in cases in particular "to the increase in screening capacity", the Madagascan president continues to distribute to his population a herbal tea, developed by the Malagasy Institute for Applied Research (IMRA) and named Covid-Organics.

This traditionally-inspired decoction is made up of nearly two-thirds (62%) of Artemisia and two other plants, Professor Herintsoa Rafatro, head of laboratory at IMRA, explained to RFI in May. But the institute refuses to reveal its exact composition, until the remedy has been patented.

The Madagascan president who says he uses it personally, promises that it is a miracle cure, assuring its population that it protects and treats the coronavirus, although the possible benefits of this herbal tea have not to date been validated by no international scientific study.

The African Union, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the WHO, for their part, have expressed doubts about the effectiveness of this decoction exported by Madagascar to ten other countries. Africans.

For the director general of healthcare supplies at the Ministry of Health, Zely Arivelo Andriamanantany, who spoke on Tuesday during an intervention on Malagasy television: "there are two factors that have contributed to the spread of this disease [in the country]". "First, we had the CVO [Covid Organics], people took the CVO, then they did not respect the barrier gestures. And secondly, the CVO is a protection of two to three weeks," he said. he declared, also defending the alleged immune virtues of herbal tea.

In his list of materials to deal with the pandemic in Madagascar, the Minister of Health disowned by Andry Rajoelina also mentioned the need for drugs, among others, 328,000 tablets of hydroxychloroquine, treatment recommended by some against Covid-19, but the effectiveness of which has not been proven to date either.

With AFP

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