An “Islamic medicine specialist” from Iran urged Iranians to drink camel urine, claiming it can cure several diseases including coronavirus, according to a video posted on Instagram which has since gone viral.

Drinking camel urine can cure lung diseases, asthma, and coronavirus, “Islamic medicine specialist” Mehdi Sabili said in a video shared on his Instagram page.

Sabili’s video went viral on social media on Sunday.

“Islamic medicine” in Iran relies on the sayings of the Shia Imams to treat patients and is dismissive of modern medicine.

Sabili is the head of the “scientific-educational association of Imam Sadegh’s medicine” in Iran and has over 60,000 followers on Instagram. Sabili himself drank some camel urine in the video, saying he needed it to protect him from the air pollution in Tehran.

He advised his viewers to drink camel urine three times a day for three days and said that the urine is best drunk while in its “initial, hot temperature.”

Videos of a cleric giving coronavirus patients at a hospital in northern Iran a perfume to smell as a cure for the virus also went viral on social media last month. One of the coronavirus patients visited by the cleric died a few days later.

The cleric, who is also a follower of Islamic medicine, was later arrested.

Abbas Tabrizian, a cleric who is considered the “father of Islamic medicine” by his followers in Iran, had said in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak in the country that “inserting velvet oil into the anus” can cure the virus.

Three Iranian medical doctors were sentenced to flogging in February on charges of “insulting” Tabrizian.

Advocates and followers of “Islamic medicine” in Iran would not be allowed to promote their ill-considered methods if not for having the approval of the country’s powerful clergy.

Iran is the epicenter of coronavirus in the Middle East, with the government reporting 5,118 deaths and 82,211 cases as of Saturday.

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Last Update: Wednesday, 20 May 2020 KSA 09:57 - GMT 06:57