In no hurry to vaccinate its population, Madagascan President Andry Rajoelina reiterated Saturday evening to prefer his herbal remedy to fight against the coronavirus pandemic in the Indian Ocean island.
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“Personally, I am not yet vaccinated and I do not intend to vaccinate myself,” he said during a televised address.
It is COVID Organics, known by the abbreviation CVO, this “miracle” herbal tea made from artemisia which is now also produced in capsule form, “which will protect me and my family”, he said. asserted.
However, he assured that he was not absolutely opposed to vaccination: “I and the Malagasy state are not against the vaccine.” Madagascar is in “a phase of observation of the vaccine, but there are too many side effects” for the moment, he estimated, without detailing which ones.
Amnesty International criticized this position during the day by denouncing a violation of the rights of Malagasy people to benefit from the best possible care.
While most countries are scrambling to obtain vaccines “validated by the WHO”, the Malagasy government “recommends a herbal treatment that it describes as a” miracle cure “, denounces the NGO in a press release. that “there is no evidence to suggest” that CVO “is effective in preventing COVID-19 infections”.
Amnesty further affirms that the lack of perspective on obtaining vaccines plunges many Malagasy people “into despair”, even if few express it “because of the climate of fear instilled over the past year, marked by a hardening of the repression. critical voices ”.
President Rajoelina announced that his country was entering a second wave of infections, due in particular to the presence of the South African variant.
The last month, 2,483 new cases of contamination and 45 deaths were recorded, said the president, estimating that these figures were “nothing worrying”.
Madagascar had proceeded in April 2020 with a free distribution with great fanfare of the anti-COVID herbal tea, interrupted when the confinement was lifted in October.
The president promised new free distributions Monday in the neighborhoods most affected by the pandemic.
In one year, the country has recorded more than 22,000 cases and 340 deaths.
In October, the president said during a factory visit: “We are going to introduce the whole world to the capsules produced from artemisia and ravintsara, local Malagasy plants, whose virtues are recognized worldwide”.
At least seven million Malagasy had already tested herbal tea, according to him, while to date no scientific study has proven its effectiveness.