DHENKANAL: With coronavirus scare pushing people to seek recourse with various claims of providing protection from the disease, homeopaths are having a busy time in the town. People in large numbers are flocking to the homeopathy dispensaries for the unfounded but proclaimed “preventive medicine” so much so that the medicine has disappeared from the shelves. Over hundred people were seen queuing in front of the municipality homeopathy dispensary on Saturday to lay their hands on the medicine Arsenic Alb 30, which is being touted as a preventive. With the dispensary running out of stock, many people had to return empty handed.
Dispensary head Dr RN Ray said the medicine is ‘preventive’ in the sense that it increases a person’s immunity which may help fend off the virus. “The medicine is sold under a German as well as Indian brand. The former is costlier, which many cannot afford. We have approached the district administration to address the issue of inadequate supply of the medicine,” he said.
Meanwhile, concerned over the panic spreading over COVID-19, the district administration has formed a task-force to undertake intensive awareness campaigns in the community-level. Collector Bhumesh Chandra Behera has also directed the chief district medical officer to start sensitisation activities at the PHC level and educate the people on the proper ways of prevention of the disease.