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Over 1 000 people have died from the virus this year, with at least a further 1 000 still infected.
Several potential cures for the disease have been posited in the past months. The most promising being ZMapp, a so-far unproven cocktail of three disease-fighting proteins. On the other end of the scale, a Nigerian pastor claimed that he could cure any sufferer simply by touching them, earning him a scathing social media backlash.
Read: The signs of Ebola
This latest cure comes from Ken Oftedal, a Norwegian Physicist with a keen interest in natural medicine. He prefaces his cure by claiming that:
“With dangerous large-scale epidemics, such as Ebola could turn out to be, the medical establishment is more often than not caught unprepared, as vaccines and/or successful treatment take time to develop and the logistics involved in distribution can be insurmountable.
“Therefore, you may be left to your own devices, in which case alternative self-treatment, in particular, homeopathy, would be your only hope of survival.”
With this in mind, Oftedal derived what he believes is an effective remedy for Ebola. The cure goes as follows.
"What you need:
1. A face mask and gloves
2. Two bottles (50 ml up to 500 ml glass or plastic bottles) with caps
3. Clean water (mineral or tap water)
4. An Ebola sample: some spit or other disease product, such as blood, from a person infected with Ebola, or who is suspected sick with it.
Any small quantity will do, even a pinhead.
5. An alcoholic liquid, such as whisky, brandy, rum, etc.
6. Half an hour of your time"
To understand the main problem with this cure, despite the fact that it is completely ineffective, one need to know that Ebola is only transmitted through the bodily fluids of an infected person.
Read: Ebola hits Nigeria
This cure explicitly calls for a sample of fluids from an infected person. While gloves and a face mask are better than nothing, many doctors have become infected despite taking much more stringent precautions. Suggesting someone collect a sample of the highly infectious disease is a highly, highly irresponsible thing to do.
For their part, Natural News took down the article shortly after it began to generate attention. They have also placed Oftedal's status as a blogger under review.
Previous stories by Oftedal include Treating Radiation Exposure with Classical Homeopathy, which was published in the wake of the Fukushima meltdown, and an explanation of electrical pollution.
Read more:
Ebola survivors can infect others with their sperm
Ethical questions around who gets Ebola drug
CDC commits more than 400 staffers to fight Ebola
