Administrative officials in two Bengal districts have taken seriously the oft-repeated advice to improve the immunity of people to help the battle against coronavirus even though doctors are unsure of the methods adopted.

While the official bid to improve immunity has been restricted to police in Malda, in Hooghly’s Arambagh, the focus is on asymptomatic Covid-19 patients.

Superintendent of police, Malda, Alok Rajoria, has issued an order to heads of all police units, inspector in charges and officer in charges of police stations under his jurisdiction to follow a set of rules that include consumption of spices, milk and warm water and also having tablets and homeopathic medicines.

The SP has said the order has been issued in view of the pandemic.

In the order, cops have been advised to drink warm water, herbal tea made of “dalchini, tulsi, kali mirch, shunthi and kishmish” once or twice a day, along with “gur” (jiggery) or lemon juice. They have been told to drink milk laced with turmeric powder once or twice a day, the order said.

“In fact, the reserve inspector has been asked to make arrangement for turmeric milk at the district police lines and the ICs and OCs have been asked to make similar arrangement at police stations,” said a source.

Rajoria has said policemen, in consultation with a physician, could have hydroxichloroquine and any ayurvedic or homeopathic medicine as preventive drugs.

Some are questioning the wisdom of the SP, who is a non-medical man, to issue such an order. “There is nothing wrong in the order and it has been made following the guidelines of the Centre’s Ayush department,” a senior health official in the district said.

Rajoria said: “It is our responsibility to ensure that cops take care of their health and precautions are made to avoid their infection.”

The administration in Hooghly’s Arambagh started distributing “immunity booster kits” to asymptomatic Covid-19 patients from Friday.

Arambagh is the first subdivision in south Bengal to distribute such kits to those suffering from the disease.

Officials said the immunity kits consisted of 150 grams of herbal mixture — mainly a mixture of ginger, tulsi, cardamom and cinnamon — and 60 pieces of vitamin-C tablets, along with two washable cloth masks and a bottle of sanitiser.

The kit also includes a catalogue of health department guidelines for home quarantine. The administration has prepared 150 kits for distribution among asymptomatic Covid-19 patients.

“According to the direction of the health department and our district magistrate, we have started distribution of immunity boosting kits to asymptomatic patients. In the future, we will prepare the herbal mixture with the assistance of the self-help groups,” said Nripendra Singh, the SDO of Arambagh.

Asked whether the herbal mixture or the vitamin-C would help Covid-19 patients boost their immunity to fight the pandemic, gastroenterologist Abhijit Chowdhury said: “I can only say it will not harm the patients.”

Sources have said there were around 50 Covid-19 patients who are asymptomatic and are in home quarantine.

On Friday, the health staff and officials visited the homes of each patient and handed over the kits to their family members with directions of use.