Tiktok video home remedy for coronavirus sickens a family in Prakasam

Ongole: The fear of Coronavirus and the negligence by the governments to control fake information, encouraged an old woman to feed seeds of thorn apple (ummetta kaya in Telugu) to the family members at Chimakurthy in Prakasam district on Saturday. The locals shifted the people, who fell unconscious after consuming the poisonous seeds to the hospital, where they are announced out of danger but are put under observation.

Katlam Suseela is an old widow lives with her son Tirupataiah's family in Chimakurthy. When her family members are watching the videos on TikTok, she listened to a person who claimed that consuming the seeds of thorn apple would improve immunity and kill Coronavirus.

As Chimakurthy is a migrant dominated village and the news about the quarantine and isolation to the COVID suspected people, she thought of gaining immunity than spending for weeks in quarantine, at the mercy of the officials. On Saturday morning, she brought the thorn apple and picked the seeds and offered her son Tirupataiah, daughter-in-law Santamma and granddaughter Naishini to consume them immediately. After a while, they fell conscious and the locals who observed in time and shifted all of them to a private hospital.

Speaking at the hospital, Suseela said that she didn't expect that her innocent act would become a danger to her family. She said that she wanted to protect her family from the Coronavirus following the video on TikTok, but the result is dangerous.