Stories have been circulating online suggesting it’s dangerous to take ibuprofen if you have coronavirus. Alongside genuine medical advice, false messages have been spreading, distorting the facts.
Now how to sift accurate information from misinformation is becoming one of the challenges of this crisis isn’t it and here’s one example we looked at google trends earlier one of the top searches was ibuprofen and that’s connected to a statement from two days back where the french health ministry suggested that that anti-inflammatory painkiller could worsen the
Effects of the corona virus the story has been very heavily shared so in the uk is this whatsapp message which says from an nhs colleague we’ve just been sent a medical alert that no one is to use anti-inflammatories so is this true well we contacted kalpana sabapathy a doctor at the london school of hygiene and tropical medicine to help us certainly in the first
Instance paracetamol is recommended any way to reduce a temperature or for aches and pains headaches that sort of thing i don’t think their evidence actually is strong enough for us to start saying that ibuprofen should never be used but certainly i think erring on the side of caution in the context of kovat and so many unknowns then certainly it would be safer to
Stick to paracetamol as as the first first-line and does that caution also apply to other anti-inflammatories potentially yes but like i said there is actually no established evidence that there is a problem with ibuprofen and kovat 19 or even really with respiratory infections there have been studies that suggest that that may be the case but it’s not established by
Any means here’s something else we’ve seen lots of messages about suggesting that eating garlic helps protect you from this virus is it true or we won’t be entirely surprised to know the world health organization has responded to this saying garlic does have anti microbial properties but there’s no evidence that eating it will protect anyone from this coronavirus
I repeat no evidence whatsoever next is the issue of alcohol as a disinfectant lots of you will use gel and sanitizers and they must have a certain alcohol content to work in fact to be effective they need to contain at least 60% alcohol and of course every bottle of alcohol you can buy in the shops to drink doesn’t get close to 60% now some people have been
Sharing information suggesting putting alcohol bought the drink all over your body can kill the coronavirus is that true well the answer is no again the world health organization says it will have no impact on the virus particularly a virus that’s entered your body it adds that actually putting alcohol over your body can be harmful to your eyes and to your mouth
The next one is face masks there are huge social pressures in some countries to buy these and wear them here are some experts on what that will achieve for an environment where everybody else is wearing a face masks and you’re not then it may make you feel vulnerable because you feel that you don’t have the protection everyone else does but logically if you’re not
Close to people they’re not coughing and sneezing on you then the face mask isn’t necessary one of the problems if lots of people who don’t need face masks are using face muscle stockpiling them it means that there aren’t enough face masks available where they’re really needed for people like health care workers who are on the frontline and dealing with suspect or
Confirmed coronavirus cases now the big tech companies facebook twitter google are saying they’re doing everything they can to curb misinformation on their platforms but to be clear the simplest thing to do if you want to be sure about that this information is good it’s go to the nhs website also go to the world health organization website and there’s also a huge
Amount of information on the bbc news website as well and i guess there’s one bit of advice that everyone is agree on which is wash your hands for at least 20 seconds a number of times per day
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Coronavirus and ibuprofen: Separating fact from fiction – BBC News By BBC News
