Quacks Make A Killing With Covid ‘Cures'

Exposed! Bogus doctors swindle panic-stricken people in the Capital by peddling fake virus tests, mystery potions & pills, besides selling occult fix

- Jamshed Khan and Nitin Jain

As modern science struggles to deal with Covid-19 and alternative medicine promotes immunity boosters, snake-oil salesmen are at work, touting bogus remedies as a fail-safe solution to the pandemic, an India Today TV investigation has found.

At Kardam Puri in North-East Delhi, Hakim Kaamil offered mystery nasal drops to India Today TV’s investigative reporters when they met him posing as attendants of a teen showing Covid symptoms.

Inshallah, I will give you a nasal medicine. It will work for corona. It's a nasal drop, Kaamil guaranteed. If coronavirus has already infected, the drops will cure the patient.

The quack advised two doses of the mystery drops in a day and claimed he administered this therapy to patients showing Covid symptoms at their homes.

People who show Covid symptoms but are not sure about the diagnosis consult me. I deliver this medicine to them at their homes, he said.

COVID TESTING AT QUACK CLINICS?

Surrounded by Covid hotspots at Mehrauli's Shamsi Talab neighborhood, a young man, Istikhar, not only offered treatment but also testing for Covid19 at his own clinic.

Will you do some testing if I bring the patient here? asked the reporter.

We'll do all tests. Give him this medicine first. I'll have the full-body tests done then, Istikhar replied.

Will you get the Covid-19 test done here? the reporter probed further.