Scientists may be toiling to find a vaccine and nations hurting under lengthy lockdowns, but all this while the shield against the novel coronavirus apparently lay within arm’s reach, in one’s kitchen cabinet.
Thus spake B. Sriramulu, Karnataka health minister and one of the state’s official spearheads in the fight against the Covid-19 outbreak.
Gargling with hot water, preferably mixed with turmeric and salt, can keep the infection at bay, the minister told reporters on Saturday, initially appearing to suggest this was a remedy for Covid-19.
“There’s no medicine for this but if you want you can add some turmeric and salt to hot water and gargle,” he said.
“I’m not a doctor but I read an article about how Chinese people gargle with hot water mixed with turmeric and salt.”
The BJP leader was not going to hand the entire credit to the Chinese, though.
While clarifying his comments in a tweet, claiming he was only suggesting a preventive measure and not a cure, he also gave a thumbs-up to traditional Indian medicine.
“Salt and turmeric were used as antibiotics in olden times in ayurveda and Chinese medicine,” he tweeted.
“Based on this, I had suggested gargling with hot water, salt and turmeric as a preventive measure and not as a remedy for the coronavirus.”
Sriramulu also tweeted pictures released by the Union ministry of ayush (ayurveda, yoga and naturopathy, unani, siddha and homoeopathy) about promoting immunity through ayurveda.
Karnataka’s minister of state for health and family welfare, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, had earlier embarrassed the government and the BJP by suggesting that exposure to sunlight would kill the novel coronavirus.
A senior BJP leader preferred to treat Sriramulu’s comment lightly, saying it was up to the people to accept his advice.
“We always gargle with hot water, salt and turmeric. He just indicated that this was a healthy habit,” the politician said, declining to be named.
Sriramulu, a close friend of the Bellary brothers -- including Janardhana Reddy who was arrested in an illegal mining case --- is one of the most influential BJP leaders in the state.
However, while most states have put their health ministers in charge of the Covid-19 battle, the Karnataka government has been forced to form a team of ministers for the job.
Leading the team are Sriramulu and medical education minister K. Sudhakar, who is a doctor.
Sriramulu was miffed when chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa assigned Sudhakar to brief the media. Caught between the two ministers, Yediyurappa handed the media job to education minister S. Suresh Kumar.