The concerned Ayurvedic drug manufacturing company has been informed that such advertisements of drugs including Ayurvedic medicines are regulated under the provisions of Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954 and Rules thereunder and the directives issued by the Central Government in the wake of COVID outbreak. Ministry had also issued a Gazette Notification No. L.11011/8/2020/AS dated 21st April, 2020 stating the requirements and the manner the research studies on COVID-19 with Ayush interventions/medicines should be undertaken.
In order to make this Ministry aware of the facts of the aforesaid news and verify the claims, Patanjali Ayurved Ltd has been asked to provide at the earliest details of the name and composition of the medicines being claimed for COVID treatment; site(s)/hospital(s), where the research study was conducted for COVID-19; protocol, sample size, Institutional Ethics Committee clearance, CTRI registration and results data of the study (ies) and stop advertising/publicizing such claims till the issue is duly examined. Ministry has also requested concerned State Licensing Authority of Uttrakhand Government to provide copies of license and product approval details of the Ayurvedic medicines being claimed for the treatment of COVID -19.”

In other words, the Ministry has advised Patanjali not to make Magical claims like they did claiming that 100% patients were recovered. In response the CEO of Patanjali has stated that there is some communication gap and they are forwarding the necessary documentation. There are some fake news that Ministry stopped the sale of Coronil, which is evidently not true.

100% Cure:

One hundred percent is a very tall claim. Actually nothing more could be claimed. But the question is what about the conditions of those people? Were those cases of mild symptoms or severe symptom? Were those cases of symptomatic patients or both? Many such quests arose because the claim of 100%. Had the launch event said that it is very good medicine and it helps people in laboratory trials and none of patients developed severe symptoms after taking the medicine, things would have been entirely different.

Look at the other medicine companies. They took a month to promote their medicine through medical practitioners who wrote papers suggesting that it is helpful. The crude launch by a Yogi was not likely to be accepted. Read this report about another medicine:

“Early June, Russia Ministry of Health approved the drug Avifavir — a brand name for favipiravir — for Covid-19. According to the first stage clinical trial in Russia, the body temperature of 68% of patients taking favipiravir returned to normal earlier — on the third day — than those in a controlled group that did not take the drug. On average, complete elimination of the virus from the body as a result of Favipiravir treatment occurred in four days, while in the standard therapy group this process took nine days. In May, Japan had approved the drug (also known as Avigan) for treating patients following promising results in the trials.”

Note the similarity of the claim for the above medicine and that which is made for Coronil. Glenmark launched COVID-19 drug after DCGI nod in India with Maximum Retail Price at Rs 103 per tablet on Sunday. See The Economic Times. It may be noted that Favipiravir is an old off patent drug which is launched at prohibitive cost in India. Generic Manufacturing should have taken care of it. It was supposed to help with Ebola. Did it help then?

Baba Ramdev should have been more articulate. Better still, he should have found some doctors to launch the medicine. Medicine world does not like to accept authority of a Yogi, even if I see nothing wrong in it.

Sad truth is that Ayurvedic Medicine suffers an international bias. The reasons very from civilisational to pure economical. The fact is that in life style medicine western allopathic medicine has almost close to nothing except vitamins which often adversely affect as no one will tell you that if you start taking vitamin by pills, body stops pulling out vitamins from the food.

Therefore, I feel confident that the medicine will help in treatment. It has known elements like Swasari Ras which is a very good medicine for bronchitis. The other medicine Tulsi is something I pluck fresh and take in tea everyday. Similar is the position of Ashwagandha and Giloy etc. The most interesting part is that Kadha or soup of some of these elements was recommended by Ministry of Ayush as immunity booster.

Roughly 50% of patients diagnosed with Sars-CoV-2 – have experienced neurological problems – headaches, loss of smell (anosmia) and tingling sensations (arcoparasthesia), aphasia (inability to speak), strokes, and seizures. Ashwagndha is supposed to take care of this problem.

If caught by Corona, I would definitely give the medicine a try but will also keep an eye on oxygen level which should not fall below 95.