Indian Hindus apply cow dung against Covid-19, doctors warn it won’t help

Doctors in India warn that the cow’s feces will not help against the coronavirus. There is no scientific evidence for this, and its use would only contribute to the spread of all kinds of diseases. The call is due to the practice of some Hindus in the western state of Gujarat to smear themselves with cow dung, according to Indian media. They believe this makes them resilient to Covid-19.

Supporters of the ‘cow vaccine’ hug the cattle and smear themselves with a mixture of manure and urine. After some yoga and rituals, the feces are then washed off the body with milk. The additional problem is that these people think they are immune and act carelessly during the pandemic.

In India, where 80 percent is Hindu, the cow is a symbol of life and cleanliness. For centuries, cow feces have been used in religious rituals but also in cleaning work because the manure and urine are said to have a cleansing and disinfecting effect.

In India, fear of the virus is partly due to the failure of health facilities to treat all patients. There are too few oxygen tanks in many places, and the vaccination campaign is progressing badly. 172 million vaccinations have been administered, but India has a population of almost 1.4 billion. Partly as a result of this, the number of deaths and the number of infections has increased rapidly recently.

Numbers

Today, however, there was some relief, according to Indian media. For the first time in over sixty days, more cures than new infections were reported. The Ministry of Health reported 329,942 new infections and 356,082 new cured corona patients. There was also a decrease in the number of new infections compared to the previous day, when more than 366,000 new cases were diagnosed. The Times of India reported that the number of new infections was the smallest in two weeks.

The country has diagnosed a total of nearly 23 million cases. Most of the infected people had no complaints or have already been cured. India has 3.7 million active cases of corona infection, and the number of deaths has risen to nearly 250,000. One in three deaths worldwide attributed to Covid-19 each day now occurs in India.

With 180 deaths per million inhabitants, India has not been hit as badly by the virus as most other countries, according to official statistics. However, the question is how accurately the cause of death is tracked in a country where an average of 27,000 people dies every day. Experts think more people have died from Covid-19 in India than is officially known.