大象传媒

The Bolivian Senate has approved a bill authorising the emergency manufacture and use of the solution chlorine dioxide to treat Covid-19. The problem is that chlorine dioxide is mainly used as a bleach, and has been falsely touted as a cure.

The bill now needs the approval of the interim president in Bolivia, Jeanine Anez, who is herself in quarantine after testing positive for the virus. Bolivia has some 60 thousand cases of coronavirus and more than 2,000 people have died so far.

Juan Jose Penarranda is a doctor in La Paz. So why are people in the country taking this treatment?

"People are dying, people are extremely scared... in medicine there's nothing such as a miracle... but people are willing to believe anything because they are desperate"

(Photo: A man buys chlorine dioxide in a pharmacy in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Credit: EPA)