This archive report was first published on 12 June 2020.
On April 20, 2020, Malagasy President Andry Rajoelina launched Covid-19 Organic CVO, a herbal preparation in Antananarivo, claiming it could treat and prevent the pandemic.
However, I held back from joining the discussion, hoping that reports from countries that had ordered the product would soon come in, rendering arguments unnecessary.
But I got back on the Malagasy Covid-19 Organic story when I heard that President Rajoelina had sacked his minister of education, Madame Rijasoa Andriamanana, for attempting to sweeten the controversial dawa by planning to give lollipops to schoolchildren every time they took a dose of the bitter CVO.
That story relates to three things that struck me about the Covid-19 Organic phenomenon: President Rajoelina's prominent role in promoting the product, the reaction of the medical establishment, and the response of other African countries.
Regarding President Rajoelina's role, I thought it was commendable, but the catch lies in how far leaders should go in making the fight their own, especially when it comes to technical and scientific matters.
Science should not arrogate to itself the monopoly of pontificating about anything concerning our lives and health. The WHO's immediate reaction was to warn the populace against Covid-19 Organic, citing lack of international approval and testing.
However, ordinary people make an appeal to conventional medical authorities to use their knowledge to treat and heal us, but not to be dismissive of traditional indigenous knowledge and wisdom.
There is a more insidious element in the thinking and attitudes of most of us, reflecting colonial, Eurocentric, and supremacist propaganda that everything African is primitive, pagan, and backward.
President Rajoelina argued that the high-handed dismissal of the Malagasy offer smacked of racist and colonial prejudice.
I am not taking sides, but the sensible approach is to analyse Covid-19 Organic systematically and objectively, examine its historical record, and assess its efficacy, if any.
Most African leaders understand the necessity of immediate action in the face of the coronavirus pestilence, and many Africans believe and know from experience that African treatments work.
The battle against the coronavirus is a struggle to be fought on all fronts and with all the weapons that we have.
