TARIJA, Bolivia — In Cochabamba, high in the Bolivian Andes, people line up daily outside pharmacies on the central plaza, eager to buy the scarce elixir they hope will ward off COVID-19: chlorine dioxide, a kind of bleach used to disinfect swimming pools and floors.
But interest in dubious medicines has been especially high recently in Latin America, where the virus is raging uncontrolled and many political leaders on the right and left are promoting them, whether out of genuine faith or a desire to offer hope and deflect blame. COVID-19 has battered already-fragile health care systems, and lockdown measures have devastated economies without bringing the virus under control.
Even so, in the small town of Nauta, in the Peruvian Amazon, the local government and religious groups went so far as to give veterinary ivermectin to adults and children as young as four, according to local media and a human rights group. Governments in El Salvador, Peru and Paraguay have bought hydroxychloroquine to treat the coronavirus.
Following Bolivia’s example, Ecuador’s Congress recently discussed whether to allow chlorine dioxide as a coronavirus treatment, and 10 local Roman Catholic bishops have called for its use. “They are not doing any favors to the Bolivian people,” he said. “We believe they are on the side of large multinational” companies.
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