Experts rubbish 'dangerous' posts touting bitter melon as treatment for rabies

"When you get bitten by a rabid dog, treat it with bitter melon leaves," read a Burmese-language Facebook post on January 13, 2025.

"Cover the wound from the rabid dog bite with bitter melon leaves. You have to squeeze the leaves and can also put the juice from the leaves on the wound," added the post which included a collage showing images of a dog and the vegetable commonly found in the Southeast Asian nation.

"Another method to cure rabies is to drink bitter melon juice."

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Screenshot taken on February 3, 2025 of the false post

Similar Burmese-language Facebook posts also shared the claim as Myanmar continued to grapple with little to no public healthcare after doctors and nurses staged a mass walk-out in protest of the 2021 military coup (archived link).

The hollowed system has led to widespread health-related misinformation as patients were forced to rely on herbal remedies including for rabies.

'Dangerous'

Phyu Phyu Thin Zaw, a lecturer at the University of Hong Kong's School of Public Health, told AFP the claim that rabies could be treated with bitter melon leaves is "dangerous" (archived link).

"It is a viral disease that is almost always fatal once symptoms appear," she said January 22, 2025.

"The only recognised treatment is through vaccination given before or immediately after an exposure," Hein Min Tun, an associate professor from the Chinese University of Hong Kong's JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, separately told AFP on January 28.

Dog bites and scratches cause the vast majority of human rabies cases, according to the World Health Organization, but the disease can be prevented through dog vaccination and bite prevention (archived link).

Those who are bitten or scratched by a potentially rabid animal should immediately seek medical help, the global health agency said.

Prompt post exposure prophylaxis -- consisting of thorough wound washing, a course of human rabies vaccine and rabies immunoglobulins when needed -- stops the virus from causing fatal inflammation of the brain and spinal cord (archived link).