Sri Lankan health minister who took ‘magic Syrup’ tests positive for Covid-19

Sri Lankan health minister who took ‘magic Syrup’ tests positive for Covid-19

A Health Ministry official on Saturday confirmed that Pavithra Wanniarachchi, Sri Lanka's Minister for Health, became the highest-ranking official to be infected with the virus. She and her immediate contacts have been asked to self-quarantine.

Pavithra Wanniarachchi had publicly consumed and endorsed a magic potion, later revealed to contain honey and nutmeg, manufactured by a sorcerer who claimed it worked as a life-long inoculation against the virus.

She also poured a pot of "blessed" water into a river in November after a self-styled god-man told her that it would end the pandemic.

On Friday, Sri Lanka approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine amid warnings from doctors that front-line health workers should be quickly inoculated to prevent the medical system from collapsing. The vaccine was the first to be approved for emergency use in Sri Lanka.

The Health Ministry says the inoculation will begin by mid-February.

A junior minister who had also taken the potion made popular by Wanniarachchi tested positive for the virus earlier this week.

Doctors in the island nation have said there is no scientific basis for the syrup, and there is no known cure for Covid-19.

But thousands defied public gathering restrictions to swamp a village in central Sri Lanka last month to obtain the elixir, made by carpenter Dhammika Bandara.

Family members of another politician, who hailed from Bandara's village, have also been infected after taking the syrup.

Pro-government media gave widespread publicity to the holy man, who claimed the formula was revealed to him by Kali, a Hindu goddess of death and destruction.

But the government has since scrambled to distance itself from Bandara, whose preparation was approved as a food supplement by the official indigenous medicine unit.

Sri Lanka has witnessed a fresh outbreak of the disease in October when two clusters — one centered on a garment factory and the other on the main fish market — emerged in Colombo and its suburbs. Sri Lanka has reported 52,964 cases with 278 fatalities.