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THE ULTIMATE ENDORSEMENT: The Health Minister Pavithra drinks the untested local syrup promoted as a prevention and cure for COVID before the media conference summoned to announce the news. In the picture are the maker of the concoction Dhammika Bandara wearing a protective mask and holding the bottle and the unmasked State Minister for Indigenous Medicine Sisira Jayakody

A few weeks ago, the poor thing was seen throwing a pot of enchanted water into the Kalu Ganga from some bridge in Ratnapura, following a dead rope given by some high up, no doubt, to banish the coronavirus from the land.

Seven weeks have passed since her magical waters have mingled with that of the Kalu Ganga and flowed to the Indian sea. Though her efforts were futile, akin to throwing money down the river, it was still a harmless exercise which did no more than evoke a titter watching a flustered Pavithra furtively paying obsequies to a pot on a lonely bridge before sending it off with a splash on its last journey; and if laughter is the best medicine, perhaps, her antic did some good to elevate the spirits of a nation bogged down by the COVID blues.

But last week, when she gave a public performance before the nation’s media drinking a spoonful of an untested, untried, unapproved and unknown local syrup masquerading as Lanka’s oral answer to Pfizer’s COVID vaccine, her hitherto innocent foibles to find solution to the coronavirus threat, took a dangerous turn that may well endanger the critical efforts of the health sector to keep COVID in check.

Dhammika Bandara: Bottled miracle

By drinking the concoction in the presence of the concoctor Dhammika Bandara who, wearing a protective face mask, appeared with an open bottle of the quack COVID cure in hand, with the unmasked State Indigenous Minister Sisira Jayakody beaming alongside, she gave the controversial syrup the Health Minister’s ultimate endorsement, displaying her absolute trust and implicit faith in the syrup’s properties and safety and tacitly promoting its mass use.

Was that the correct message to have sent to the masses as to the effectiveness of a mysterious quack medicine claiming to cure COVID based on some pseudo scientific trial and end a pandemic? Even though she herself was, perhaps, unwittingly being used as an experimental guinea pig in front of the media cameras with the event giving an enormous publicity boost to the syrup druid’s questionable medical alchemy to turn nutmeg and two secret ingredients mixed with bees’ honey to an all protective COVID panacea?

Her act spoke volumes, a million times more than mere words of attestation and testimonials could ever have done; her syrup gulping, dramatically more powerful than any official ministry approval could ever have achieved in turning this ‘Dhammika Paniya’ to an instant sensation and its creator to a media star.

Two weeks ago it was a former Fisheries Minister eating raw fish before the media cameras to prove fish was COVID safe and who this week told Parliament he had been able to rid the people of the fish eating phobia.

Here was the present Minister of Health plugging an unheard of local concoction claiming to cure COVID by drinking it on national television to show it was safe. If a convincing, persuading cue was needed for a ‘syrup rush’ to Kegalle to begin, for a stampede to start, this was it.

It was all that a credulous people, gullible enough to accept the promises of their politicians as binding covenants and their words as gospel truths no matter how many times betrayed, were waiting for to break through the restraints and make a dash to Kegalle’s Hettimulla where outside the Udumagama Maha Veera Bhadra Kali Devale kapuwa Dhammika Bandara was dishing out his bottled miracle of COVID cures to all who asked for hope, bottled and corked.

Now let’s hear it from the horse’s mouth, from the man himself who claims he discovered the elixir to beat the coronavirus and end its deadly stranglehold on mankind, the magic cure all the pharmaceutical companies in the world have been striving to find ever since the virus emerged from China’ Wuhan to lay terrible siege on the world.

Dhammika Bandara says: ‘’I have found a medicine to cure COVID infected patients. I have used nutmeg and two other ingredients which are a secret. They are mixed with bees’ honey.

‘’I can scientifically prove that this medicine cures people. I gave this medicine to the hospital at Wathupitiwela. In the first instance, there were 140 patients there. They were all positive and this medicine was given six days later. And the medicine was given to all. Twice a day for three days. After that 10 were randomly given PCR tests. They were found negative.’’

When asked about the other 130 patients who were not subjected to PCR testing, his answer was that he had been informed they were still there as patients. He then spoke of the second ‘scientific testing’ of his cure and the results.

He said: ‘In the second instance, there were fifty patients. Some of them were given my medicine. The rest were given a placebo without their knowledge. When 31 of them were tested later, 16 who were given my medicine  tested negative, while the balance 15 continued to be positive.’’

‘’This medicine is not only a cure but is also a protector. Those adults who are healthy should take one tablespoon twice a day – morning and night – for two days. Those who are infected should take the same for three days. All will receive immunity for life.’’

‘’This is an ancient remedy, coming from the time of Ravana. Even Arahants are said to have taken it. Even at that time there were similar epidemics I make it at home and make it in the way a normal ‘arishta’ is made.  It takes 29 hours to make 40 bottles and each bottle costs me Rs. 6,500. One bottle is enough for 15 COVID affected patients. Thus the cure for a person is roughly Rs.  450.”

So what‘s the prognosis? Has the Dhammika Paniya stolen the thunder of the Pfizer Vaccine? Has the ancient knowledge of the Sinhalese produced not only a two-in-one oral vaccine and COVID cure but also guarantees immunity for life?

First the credentials of the concoction. Dhammika Bandara claims it’s made from a secret recipe coming from days of Ravana. While it is certainly true that ayurveda remedies have shown an impressive track record of curing diseases that existed in the days gone by, even those that western medicine have nothing to offer but pain killers, the baffling question is how there could be an ancient  remedy for an epidemic caused by a virus that didn’t exist in the past?

Of course, a coronavirus may have ravaged the land in the past but, given the tendency of a virus to mutate, it would not have been the same COVID-19 for which the Pfizer vaccine has been engineered to defeat. Unless, in the medical arsenal of hela veda rahas, there existed a cure-all recipe for all past, present and still to come coronaviruses, which Dhammika’s progenitors from Ravana times carefully preserved as heirlooms to be handed down generation to generation for present day use.

Second, the method of conducting the so-called scientific trials of the syrup. Questions have been raised as to the proprieties of doctors conducting secret experimental trials on patients in governmental hospital wards. If such illegal practices are to be tolerated on the basis it’s for a greater good — Nazi Dr. Mengele’s defence exactly when he tested on Jewish patients in German hospital wards — then patients warded at government hospitals may be used as human guinea pigs  to be vivisected by fanatical doctors in the future.

These illegal clinical trials, done through flawed procedure, have been shown to have fallen below the standard minimum and its results have been ruled as not proving the medicine’s efficacy as claimed.

Third, it is the grossly irresponsible manner in which the Health Minister Pavithra and the Indigenous Medicine State Minister Sisira responded to this ‘miracle’ concoction. Instead of approaching the subject with measured caution and ordering the prescribed procedure of scientific testing carried out thoroughly and conclusively, the duo had flipped.

Clutching a few straws of test results now held to be defective, the euphoric health duo had thrown discretion to the winds and rushed to embrace the magic portion, with Pavithra summoning a media conference to herald the good news of a COVID cure and be the first to publicly drink it without question.

Fourth, publicised as Veera Badhramma Corona Nivarana Prathishakthi Jeeva Panaya or the Goddess Badhra’s Corona Complete Immunity Life Drink, or more commonly as Dhammika’s Paniya, it has continued to attract thousands daily to Dhammika’s devale door.

Many of them arriving to receive to medicinal syrup had showed scant regard to observing the health guidelines; and a perturbed IGP had called for a full report. The real danger is that after drinking this magic hela syrup, these thousands would receive a false confidence boost that they have been rendered invincible to the coronavirus and have nothing to fear anymore; and thus could lower their guard, now that they are protected for life with Dhammika’s oral vaccine.

Fifth, after Dhammika Bandara presented the Speaker with a case of the stuff on Friday, government MPs, too, joined the party and began swallowing Dhammika’s Paniya with glee, claiming perhaps, parliamentary immunity from taking medicines not scientifically tested and without the Drug Authority and the Food Authority of the Health Ministry approving it. Indigenous Medicine Secretary also stepped in to state, “still we cannot say whether the medicine is suitable and whether approval will be given to the general public as a food supplement”.

New COVID Minister Sudharshani Fernandopulle warned no one can distribute drugs which had not been scientifically tested and approved by an authority. She said: “The existing registered drugs, which are used, have been scientifically proved and we are aware of the side effects and are aware of who can be administered with the treatment and who cannot be. Our priority is the safety of the general public.’’

Evidently the Health Minister has failed to stick to medical procedures and validating the claims made as to the efficacy of the indigenous medicine through scientific trials. If found to be effective it will be heaven sent to the world to get rid of COVID with an oral vaccine and cure. Unfortunately, before scientifically confirming its efficacy, Pavithra’s resort to expediency has made this untested medicine widely available, and, alongside this entertaining road show, given the public false hopes that they have triumphed over COVID with Dhammika’s Paniya.

Even as a specialist doctor of medicine Sudharshani failed to handle Lanka’s prisons and penal  reforms, it is clear that attorney-at-law Pavithra is all at sea handling the nation’s health.