Updated:
Share Article
AAA
Alappuzha Municipality in Kerala recently got flak for its suggestion to use an ayurvedic powder for fumigation to contain COVID-19 spread. Now, popular science activists and Ayurveda practitioners are engaged in a debate over the efficacy and scientific validity of that powder even as one more grama panchayat in Thiruvananthapuram district has conducted a similar event.
The civic body in Alappuzha had urged all the 50,000 households in its jurisdiction to observe ‘Dhooma Sandhya’ at 6.30 p.m. on May 8 by fumigating their surroundings with the smoke generated from burning ‘aparajita dhooma choornam’. The municipality had earlier distributed packets of the powder to residents for free as part of COVID-19 prevention. “Aparajitha dhooma choornam could prevent all airborne infectious diseases. It is antibacterial and antiviral,” a notice had said. The Malayinkeezhu grama panchayat in Thiruvananthapuram too followed suit a couple of days later.
Express News Service
KOCHI: Phones are always buzzing at the newly-set up Covid war room in the Kochi Metro building near Jawarharlal Nehru Stadium at Kaloor. More than 50 people, including officials from district administration, doctors, and young volunteers, are monitoring and updating data on the availability of beds and oxygen supply in both government and private hospitals. The war room works round the clock and its members work in two shifts.
Eldhose, a post-graduate in social work, has been monitoring and handling patient data from hospitals in the district for the past six months. As we speak, his phone rings. A health official from a private hospital is calling up to update the admission of a new Covid patient.