Experts on
Friday dismissed as reckless and irresponsible US President Donald Trump’s
suggestion of injecting disinfectant to treat patients with COVID-19, the
disease caused by the new coronavirus. “Is there a way we can do something like
that, by injection inside (the body)?”, Trumps asked at his daily briefing
Thursday, having said that disinfectant knocks out the virus “in a minute”.
“Because, you see, it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the
lungs,” Trump continued, apparently referring to disinfectant. “So it would be
interesting to check that out.” In interviews and on social networks, doctors
and others dismissed Trump’s idea out-of-hand. “This notion of injecting or
ingesting any type of cleansing product into the body is irresponsible, and
it’s dangerous,” Vin Gupta, pulmonologist and global health expert told NBC
News. “It’s a common method that people utilise when they want to kill
themselves.” “We have already seen people mistakenly poisoning themselves by
taking chloroquine when their hopes were raised by unscientific comments,”
noted Parastou Donyai, director of pharmacy practice and the University of
Reading, referring to a malaria drug Trump has promoted as a treatment for
COVID-19.
Last month an Arizona man died and his wife was put in critical condition after
ingesting chloroquine phosphate, an additive used to clean fish tanks that is
also found in the medicine promoted by the US president. Injecting a toxic
substance “gives very little time to step in and reverse the injection of a
poison,” Donyai warned. Walter Shaub, former director of the US Office of
Government Ethics, said Trump’s daily briefings are doing more harm than good.
“As a public service, please stop airing these coronavirus briefings, they are
endangering lives,” he tweeted. “And please do not drink or inject
disinfectant.” University of California professor and former secretary of
labour Robert Reich agreed, tweeting that “Trump’s briefings are actively
endangering the public’s health.” “Boycott this propaganda — Listen to the
experts,” he added. At least two manufacturers of cleaning products sold in the
United States issued statements after Trump’s address, warning people against
using them as a treatment. “Under no circumstances should our disinfectant
products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or
any other route,” Reckitt Benckiser, the UK-based maker of Lysol and Dettol,
said in a statement Friday.
Source: Vanguard News Nigeria.
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