India to test 4 Ayurvedic drugs for virus within a week, says Minister

NEW DELHI: India is working on four traditional medicine formulations to treat Coronavirus infection and the trials will start soon, the country's AYUSH minister tweeted. AYUSH or short for ayurveda, yoga, unani, siddha and homeopathy is the country's traditional medicine ministry.

“The @moayush & the @CSIR_IND are working together on validating four Ayush formulations against #Covid19pandemic and the trials will start within one week. These formulations will be tried as an add-on therapy and standard care for COVID19 patients,” Union Minister of State for AYUSH Shripad Y Naik tweeted.

The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research or

CSIR, with which the AYUSH Ministry is working to conduct the traditional medicine trials, is one of the largest and most diversified publicly funded scientific and industrial research organisations in the world.

“I am sure and quite hopefull that, our traditional medicinal system will show the way to overcome this Pandemics,” Mr Naik tweeted.

Doctors are trying a mix of treatment for the novel Coronavirus - a virus never seen before and whose characteristics are still being studied - till the time a vaccine is developed, tested and produced in mass numbers.

Ayurveda or otherwise, so far the world hasn't found a cure for the Coronavirus that's wholly backed by researchers and drugmakers unanimously. Trials of different drugs are going on.

Some medical experts have said that plasma therapy, which involves taking the antibodyrich plasma from the blood of a recovered COVID-19 patient, could help infected people fight the virus. But this treatment is also not one-hundred per cent backed by scientists as its effectiveness remains inconclusive.