A FEW weeks ago, while I was browsing for needful things at the Chow Kit market, I was drawn to the traders at a row of shops along Jalan Raja Bot selling jamu, a Javanese traditional herbal drink.
"Belanja, Pak Haji," cried an Indonesian man who persuaded me to step in and buy traditional remedies, all stacked in boxes in his small shop.
Pointing to a set of jamu bottles on a shelf, "Yang ini, Pak Haji, bagus untuk merembes kuman Covid-19. Udah banyak saya jual (This one, Pak Haji, is good for killing the Covid-19 virus. I've sold many of these products)."
He told me the liquid jamu was brewed from a blend of turmeric, red ginger, lemongrass and cinnamon. He then poured the thick liquid into a small plastic cup and shoved it to me, trying to get me to sip it.
I looked at it and sniffed the liquid. It was an overpowering smell between rancid and sweet. I suddenly found the courage and imbibed it in one quick gulp, trying to avoid my palate from actually tasting it.
Oh boy, it tasted peculiarly bittersweet. The heavy-set man then nonchalantly uttered: "Bagus sekali kalau Pak Haji ambil jamu ini dengan telur ayam kampung setiap pagi. (It would be effective if you take the jamu with kampung chicken eggs.)"
As concern grew since the Covid-19 outbreak and spread pervasively, more people sought traditional remedies to fend off the virus.
Jamu peddlers like those on Jalan Raja Bot enjoyed brisk business now that people looked to traditional remedies to boost their immune system against the coronavirus.
Medical experts said herbal remedies such as jamu are not anti-coronavirus medications as they could only be antioxidants and are effective in increasing blood flow.
The World Health Organisation said some traditional or home remedies might provide comfort and ease symptoms of Covid-19, but there was no evidence that herbal medicines and supplements could prevent or cure the disease.
But really, we'd be surprised with the variety of concoctions that people created since the Covid-19 pandemic began.
Some concoctions were elaborate, while some were just as simple as drinking hot or warm water several times a day. The latest concoction that went viral was a boiled mixture of lemongrass, neem leaves and coarse salt.
A police officer in Ipoh was said to have brewed the concoction and given it to her subordinates to drink before they left for duty during the Movement Control Order.
Then, another person, who claimed to have run tests on some Covid-19 patients, said the infected showed negative results after three days of gargling with mouthwash twice or thrice a day.
The Health Ministry subsequently quashed the method, saying it would not kill the virus. Over the past months, I came across many other suggestions, including drinking coconut water with lemon or eating cucumbers and tomatoes daily.
In March last year, an academician with Universiti Malaysia Terengganu went viral when she mentioned that the traditional Malay dish ikan singgang might have the potential to stop Covid-19 as it possessed microbe-fighting properties.
Ikan singgang is a sweet and sour fish dish made with pantry supplies found in every Malay home, such as turmeric, salt, onion and ginger. Malaysians are not the only ones who resorted to traditional remedies.
Like Indonesians with their jamu, the Chinese in China have jinhua qinggan granules, a multi-herbal formula, while the Indians in India used Ayurvedic treatment to combat Covid-19.
These traditional remedies are effective in alleviating symptoms, reducing the severity of the virus, improving recovery rates and reducing the mortality rate.
However, the efficacy and safety of the traditional remedies have yet to be proven scientifically.
Though there may be benefits to traditional medicine, it is unclear whether there are any real remedies to Covid-19. Yet, two important factors that these herbal remedies bring are comfort and hope.
The writer, a former NST journalist, is a film scriptwriter whose penchant is finding new food haunts