Ramdev’s wonder cure has to wait
Baba Ramdev has been asked to stop hawking his coronavirus cure until the claim has been verified.
The directive came from none other than the AYUSH Ministry, which has asked Baba’s flagship company Patanjali Ayurved to submit details of the ingredients of the medicine, other procedural clearances and research study findings.
Until the ministry gives its go-ahead, Baba Ramdev will have to hold back his horses.
The seductively titled ‘Coronil and Swasari’ medicines," it is claimed, have undergone clinically controlled trials which threw up staggering results: 69% patients recovered in 3 days and 100% patients recovered in 7 days, it is claimed.
As Patanjali CEO Acharya Balkrishna took to Twitter and announced that it was a historic day for the family, denizens of social media lapped up the news of the ‘wonder drug’ and lampooned WHO and other scientists who are still in a scramble to find a cure.
In an official release, the Ayush Ministry said after the Patanjali launch, "The facts of the claim and details of the stated scientific study are not known to the ministry." Until Patanjali gets the requisite clearances, it should desist from advertising its Corona remedy.
The medicine made of Tulsi, Ashwagandha, Giloy, which are ingredients in
many other Ayurvedic medicines for a score of ailments.
Ramdev has said that the necessary approvals for conducting the trials of medicine on patients had been taken from competent authorities.
The anti-corona remedy is an outcome of the research by Patanjali Research Institute, Haridwar, and the National Institute of Medical Sciences University Jaipur. The corona kit was pegged at a reasonable Rs 545 and would have had medicines for 30 days. Patanjali claims the medicine can also be taken as a preventive remedy.
While various drugs have shown differing levels of efficiency in treating the virus, there is no cure that has been announced before this. And Patanjali specifies that the new medicine, known as Coronil, is not an immunity booster but a cure for the deadly virus. Recently, scientists leading a UK-led clinical trial known as RECOVERY had claimed a “major breakthrough” by suggesting a drug that could become a standard medicine for patients being treated in hospitals for the deadly disease. It was claimed that low doses of the generic steroid drug dexamethasone administered to patients affected with COVID-19 reduced death rates by around a third among those with the most severe cases of infection.