Ashgabat
Well-known for his baffling botanical pronouncements, Turkmenistan’s President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has claimed that licorice could cure Coronavirus. The country still claims zero cases of Corona.
“Scientists from every country are looking for effective cures, running various studies, and one of them could be licorice root,” the leader of the authoritarian ex-Soviet country told ministers, according to AFP.
Without citing any scientific evidence, former dentist Berdymukhamedov claimed that “licorice stops the Coronavirus from developing” and “even a weak concentration of a water-based extract has a neutralising effect.”
Turkmenistan has “sufficient reserves” of licorice, he added, ordering the national academy of sciences to study the plant’s supposed health effects.
Berdymukhamedov had already in March recommended that people “systematically” burn wild rue, a strong-smelling plant believed to have medicinal properties, to combat the coronavirus, sending prices skyrocketing.—AFP
