Cow urine and cow dung can be used for treating novel coronavirus disease, Chakrapani Maharaj, President of Hindu Mahasabha said on January 31, according to an IANS report.

He added that a special yagna will be performed to "kill the novel coronavirus and end its effects on the world".

This comes at a time when one case of novel coronavirus has been confirmed in Kerala, India.

"Consuming cow urine and cow dung will stop the effect of infectious coronavirus. A person who chants Om Namah Shivay and applies cow dung on body, will be saved. A special yagna ritual will soon be performed to kill coronavirus," the report quotes Chakrapani as saying.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

The death toll from the novel coronavirus outbreak in China increased to 259 on February 1.

The total confirmed cases surged to 11,791. This comes amid stepped up efforts by a number of countries to evacuate their nationals from China’s Hubei province — the epicentre of the virus.

This is the biggest increase since China began reporting the spread of the virulent virus on January 21.

News agency ANI had quoted a Health Ministry official as saying that all 324 Indians who arrived on board Air India’s special flight from Wuhan at New Delhi Airport earlier on February 1, are fine and that their health screening was done at medical camps.