Industry representatives have demanded that the State Government take steps to distribute Ayurvedic drugs in schools close on the heels of the launch of distribution of Arsenicum Album 30 C as a preventive medicine against COVID-19 among students.
D. Ramanathan, general secretary, Ayurvedic Medicine Manufacturers Organisation of India (AMMOI), said recent studies had found that around one lakh people who were given Ayurvedic drugs had developed immunity against the infection. The schools in Kerala are set to reopen on November 1.
Results of the study conducted by Sharmila Mary Joseph, Divya S. Iyer, and Rajmohan Velayudhan Pillai were published in the Frontiers in Public Health journal. The study claimed that Ayurvedic programmes “implemented systematically under an organised framework with social participation” enabled wider utilisation of the services. “Such a framework is easily replicable even in resource-poor settings. Rather than a pluralistic approach, an integrative health system approach may be more viable in the Kerala scenario in public health emergencies,” it says. The paper was titled ‘Ayurvedic Response to COVID-19 Pandemic in Kerala, India and its Impact on Quarantined Individuals – A Community Case Study’. It was supported by the AYUSH Department and the Government Ayurveda Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram.
The demand could lead to another round of debate between modern medicine practitioners and those who follow alternative branches of medicine. The Indian Medical Association (IMA) and the Indian Academy of Pediatrics and a number of public health experts had already opposed the distribution of Arsenicum Album. The pro-Left Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad too objected to the initiative.
Dr. Ramanathan claimed that Ayurvedic drugs had been in use for centuries and they were safe. The Government should take steps to distribute the medicines with clinically proven efficacy. The AMMOI also sought awareness campaigns against what it called misleading propaganda to counter the Government’s efforts to contain the pandemic.
