AFP / Bolivia
The president, Luis Arce, asked the population this Friday “not to lower their guard” against Covid-19, in the face of fears of an outbreak, and stressed the use of traditional medicine to fight infections.
“We continue to face the pandemic with possible outbreaks in many countries, we have seen it in Europe and we must be vigilant, we cannot be vigilant,” the president said during the opening of a meeting of indigenous people in the Cochabamba region (center).
Bolivia has recorded more than 9,000 deaths since March and about 148,600 people infected with coronavirus.
Regions and cities such as Santa Cruz (east) and La Paz are taking steps to counter the outbreaks they are suffering.
Arce, who claims the knowledge and skills of the native peoples, pointed out that “we used those herbs that our brothers knew ancestral to fight the pandemic and we did it successfully in the different nationalities and peoples of our Latin America.
Since the first cases of sick people in the country became known, the indigenous sectors, mainly Aymara and Quechuas, have used various natural products, to which they attribute healing powers.
This population uses plants and trees such as eucalyptus, wira wira and chamomile as antibacterial and expectorant inputs, which, according to native shamans, help to create and strengthen the immune system.
In parallel, a neighborhood in the heart of La Paz was subjected to an epidemiological control on Friday and for a week, in front of an outbreak focused on coronavirus cases.
The municipal personnel brigades carry out the washing of the supply markets in the Miraflores district, where there is a network of public hospitals, the legendary Hernando Siles stadium and the main offices of the High Command of the Armed Forces.
Market entry is limited to a maximum of 30% of their capacity, in a so-called “epidemiological blockade”.
The Santa Cruz region is taking steps to strengthen its health care system after its government said earlier this week that it was facing a “second wave” of pandemic.