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Remedios Yujra, 42, deeply breathes in the mist of a cooking herbs formerly used by the Aymara to purify their lungs as they pass through a mist chamber installed in the Bolivian Andean city of El Alto.
Like Remedios, thousands of Bolivians rely on the beneficial properties of eucalyptus, wira wira, and chamomile, antibacterial plants, expectorant, febrifuge, and sweat which, according to traditional doctors, help to create an immune blanket against the coronavirus.
It feels “very nice, pure steam with medicinal plants, how cute!” Exclaimed Remedios after leaving the first of the ten plastic craft chambers that will be installed in the Alto Lima neighborhood of the city of El Alto, 3,800 meters above sea level and neighbor of La Paz, inhabited mostly by Aymara migrants.
The association of traditional Inca Roca Doctors, who installed the cabin, replaced the usual sodium hypochlorite nebulizer with a boiled eucalyptus, wira wira (huira huira) and manzanilla, plants that the Bolivian indigenous people use when they have colds. The national pharmacy also has these plants in their dosage, for example in antitussives.
With this initiative “we are preventing coronavirus, because a cold, a cough can start (to spread) the pandemic”Says the traditional doctor Judith Condori Apaza, who points out that this is in no way a cure against the evil that is unrestrainedly attacking the planet.
“Inhale and exhale forcefully, so we are going to help (the steam) enter the lungs and free the airways”, One of Condori’s colleagues indicates to a neighbor from El Alto inside the chamber.
“We are aware that this virus is first lodged in the airways and has a small capsule that we can remove, which weakens with these medicinal plants,” explains the doctor to the man who has just been treated with plant vapors.
The procedure “more than anything is preventive”, says Felipe Néstor Quilla, vice minister of Natural Medicine.
“At this time We do not have to offer a cure, but what we are doing is helping methods through medicinal plants to mainly prevent“He clarifies when asked if he thinks that these plants will help stop the pandemic.
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Is about “strengthen the immune system. The steam is impregnated in the porosity of the body protecting it from harmful microorganisms and bacterias ”, explains Quilla.
Pulmonologist Andrei Miranda, a doctor at the Caja Petrolera clinic, maintains that “evidently (eucalyptus) helps disinfect” but “unfortunately eucalyptus as a disinfection element for coronavirus does not have a specific study“
However, “you have to respect the culture of the country” and “what can help, can help, but we cannot make the mistake of making disinfection chambers only with herbal elements“He maintains. The ancestral part “has to go hand in hand” with the scientific part, he adds.
“The disinfection tents are a part of help, but it is not the fundamental element”, but social distancing, hand washing, the use of alcohol gel, the use of chinstrap and other measures recommended by international health organizations, Miranda points out.
However, this is not the only contribution of the population to defend against CODIV-19, which so far has infected some 400 Bolivians and caused 28 deaths.
For example, the environmentalist Álex Vilca is building disinfecting booths en masse in the Oruro region of Surand, where the coronavirus has regrowth after 22 days without infection.
Once a person enters the cabin, a system that pumps sodium hypochlorite automatically fumigates it for five seconds, “eliminating 100% of the viruses impregnated in your clothes and body“In a few minutes, Vilca tells journalists.
In the midst of a precarious health resource, Many Bolivians handcrafted masks or masks of transparent acetate facial protection.
To combat the pandemic, the authorities have extended the national confinement until April 30, while some cities, such as Santa Cruz, where half of the infected are concentrated, are militarized.
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