Reckless ‘cure’ comments

The words of Unesco director-general Audrey Azoulay on 2020 World Press Freedom Day are worth repeating —“to fight the infodemic of rumours and disinformation which is exacerbating the pandemic and putting lives at risk”.

On that same day, a senior ANC leader spewed a reckless statement about a traditional medicine as Covid-19 cure. This theme was continued by two disturbing columns on nicotine in respected newspapers by senior journalists.

I can excuse the ANC leader because politicians by their nature are populists whose ignorance overrules science. The Madagascar miracle cure of artemisia and ravensara promoted by President Andry Rajoelina reminds me of former Gambia dictator Yahya Jammeh who told the world in 2007 of his Aids cure. It is reckless to say people must drink “umhlonyane” or artemisia Afra/annual as the ANC leader was suggesting.

It is more dangerous if journalists tell people nicotine protects you against Covid-19. Journalists should not use their positions to be tobacco lobbyists. The health profession needs the media to spread the correct message about Covid-19.

I concede my simple letter can never compete with 490,000 signatories calling for the lifting of restrictions on tobacco sales and the mighty Sars that is losing R35m/day due to tobacco lockdown. Neither do I want to be a moralist who is policing smokers. I cannot believe in 2020, we are back rehashing science vs smoking debate. The Pulitzer winning classic work of Richard Kluger ‘Ashes to Ashes — America’s Hundred Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris’ exposed and debunked the lies.

Let me repeat Kluger’s foreword: “Did mankind simply become putty in the hands of the master manipulators who ran the cigarette business?” Why would anyone suggest nicotine can protect you against respiratory infection?

Other misinformation is that Covid-19 patients die mostly of large-vessel stroke rather than pneumonia and hypoxemic respiratory failure. The stroke story gained traction after five case studies of younger patients in New York City with largevessel ischemic stroke.

Incidence of stroke is only 5% in Covid-19 as a Wuhan, China, retrospective study of Covid-19 published in the New England Journal of Medicine, shows. Some have coagulopathy and multiple infarcts. The majority of Covid-19 patients present with upper and lower respiratory infections. The clinical characteristics of Covid-19 are welldocumented from multiple studies.

Let’s not confuse ourselves. Artemisia Afra/Annua is not a cure for Covid-19. Nicotine does not protect you from Covid-19. Dr Lucas Ntyintyane

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