Well-known for his baffling botanical pronouncements, Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov claimed that licorice could cure coronavirus, the latest supposed miracle cure in a country still claiming zero cases.

“Scientists from every country are looking for effective cures, running various studies, and one of them could be licorice root,” the leader of the authoritarian ex-Soviet country told ministers, according to AFP.

Without citing any scientific evidence, former dentist Berdymukhamedov claimed that “licorice stops the coronavirus from developing” and “even a weak concentration of a water-based extract has a neutralising effect.”

Turkmenistan has “sufficient reserves” of licorice, he added, ordering the national academy of sciences to study the plant's supposed health effects.

Berdymukhamedov had already in March recommended that people “systematically” burn wild rue, a strong-smelling plant believed to have medicinal properties, to combat the coronavirus, sending prices skyrocketing.