It was startling to read the news item ‘Centre drops use of Ivermectin, Doxycycline to treat Covid’ in TGE edition dated June 8, 2021. Right from the start of the pandemic, the central government and the medical fraternity have been at a loss to understand how to treat Covid and in the bargain, thousands of lives have been lost. After having resorted to various medications that doctors have been prescribing for the past one-and-a-half-year or so, comes an advisory dropping the use of certain pills like Ivermectin and Doxycycline in the treatment of Covid. Incidentally, these two have become household names. Certain drugs like Remdesivir were also much sought after. Then of course we also had fake babas offering their own concoctions to cure Covid. To add to it all, we had others offering cow dung and other remedies to fight the virus. Clearly, the medical fraternity and the entire country have been groping in the dark. Human beings were and are still being used as guinea pigs for experimentation purposes. Even with regard to vaccines, there has been no clear directive. The gap between two doses being widened in relation to the demand and whether the vaccines are effective in the first place, as many have contracted the virus after taking the first shot and have succumbed to the virus. So, where are we heading? On the road to disaster?
MELVILLE X D’SOUZA, Mumbai
