Indian kids eat live fish to cure asthma
Campaigners in India have demanded that children under 14 be banned from swallowing live fish in a traditional treatment for asthma administered at a festival every year in June. Hundreds of thousands of sufferers gather annually in Hyderabad in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh to gulp down small live fish and a special herb paste.
The Goud family, which says it received the medicine recipe from a Hindu saint in 1845, treats people from across India for free during a two-day period determined by astrologers and the onset of the monsoon. The wriggling five-centimetre (two-inch) fish, which the family says clear the throat on their way down, will be dispensed this year on June 8 and 9.
Child rights group Balala Hakkula Sangham has lobbied the state’s Human Rights Commission to stop children under 14 from taking the medicine as it is “unscientific” and a violation of human rights. “The process of giving the medicine is unhygienic as the person gives it to lakhs (hundreds of thousands) of people without washing their hands,” added the petition seeking a ban. Andhra Pradesh’s Human Rights Commission on Tuesday ordered a report into the complaints.
Last year 400,000 people swallowed live fishes handed out by 200 family members. After digesting the treatment, patients are told to go on a strict diet of specific food for 45 days.