Ugandan Speaker of House Rebecca Kadaga faced criticism this week after unveiling a spray she said kills the Chinese coronavirus. She supplied no corroborating scientific evidence to back her claim.

Kadaga, who is one of the chief architects of the country’s controversial “Kill The Gays” law, was last month quoted as saying that Uganda had received a patent to produce a spray from a Ugandan scientist that kills the coronavirus, in what would be a vital worldwide discovery.

“A professor who manufactured a treatment for coronavirus in the U.S. was here last week and donated the patent to Uganda and within a fortnight, the treatment will be made here,” she said. “It will be made by a company called Dei International, the young man is from Busoga, so not that we should relax but there is hope that the treatment will start here in Uganda.”

I've told Parliament that a spray, which instantly kills the Corona virus, has been discovered & is to be co-produced in Uganda. It goes on the market next week. The American inventor, Prof. Safraz K. Niaz, was here at the weekend & donated the patent, free of charge to Uganda. — Rebecca Kadaga (Official) (@RebeccaKadagaUG) March 16, 2020

Her comments were heavily criticized by the public and the Ugandan Medical Association, who urged people to discard her advice, pointing out that no vaccine for the coronavirus has yet been developed and accusing her of giving false hope to people with false information.

Here is evidence of the Prof's visit. pic.twitter.com/gob8FlmEtd — Rebecca Kadaga (Official) (@RebeccaKadagaUG) March 16, 2020

On Wednesday, Kadaga unveiled the new spray, arguing in a television interview that she never described the treatment as a vaccine and claiming her critics were merely excited.

“The sanitizer is here, this is the one … the people got excited, now they are quiet,” she said. “I couldn’t have called it a vaccine. I said it’s a spray that kills the virus instantly.”

Asked what the spray offers that other sanitizers do not, she said: “I don’t want to go into the mechanics of it, but what I was told is it has more potency than some of the others.”

Neither a cure nor a vaccine for the Chinese coronavirus has so far been developed, and although trials are taking place around the world, there is currently no fixed date for its release. Many expect the mass distribution of a vaccine could be as late as the second half of 2021.

According to the latest data from the Ugandan Health Ministry, the country has so far recorded just 55 cases of the coronavirus and no deaths. With its population of over 42 million, this makes it one of the least affected countries not just in Africa, but around the world.

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