On Thursday, Union minister Shripad Y Naik stated that trials of four traditional coronavirus drugs developed by the AYUSH ministry and the research body CSIR will commence within a week.
“These formulations will be tried as an add-on therapy and standard care for Covid-19 patients,” said Shripad Naik, the Minister of State for AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy).
“I am sure and quite hopeful that our traditional medicinal system will show the thanks to overcoming this pandemic,” he said.
“The @moayush & the @CSIR_IND are working together on validating four Ayush formulations against #COVID19Pandemic and therefore the trials will start within one week. These formulations are going to be tried as an add-on therapy and standard look after COVID-19 patients. I am sure and quite hopeful that our traditional medicinal system will show the thanks to overcoming this pandemic,” Naik said on Twitter.
On Wednesday, CSIR Director-General Shekhar Mande and Ayurveda and AYUSH secretary Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha stated that the outcome will come within three months.
“Last week, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan announced that CSIR and AYUSH will work together on four different formulations,” Mande said.
Kotecha said that AYUSH and CSIR association has a substantial stance. “This is once in a lifetime opportunity. This type of study never happened in our country. These four candidates are – Ashwagandha, Yashtimadhu (Mulethi), Guduchi + Pippali (Giloy) and AYUSH-64, which was invented for the treatment of malaria and its repurposing is going on,” he said.
“So, we do two sorts of stimulus studies as profile access on the high-risk population for Ashwagandha. We have also planned a competitive study between Hydroxychloroquine and Ashwagandha,” he added.
The AYUSH secretary stated that these four formulations will be tried as an add-on therapy and standard care for Covid-19 patients.
“It may be a clinical study multi-centric on different parts of the country and variable design. For example, this clinical study is for the protocol. We have formed the taskforce and have prepared guideline for the clinical test. Some of the simplest scientists of the country from the medical field, from CSIR et al. , also reviewed this,” Kotecha said.
“We have taken advice from the ICMR in order that it becomes so robust that it should be publishable into very high impact journal,” he added.
Mande noted that Ayurveda has established on clinical practices thousands of years that have been followed since then.
“So, we trust Ayurveda. We aren’t ready to show the mechanism of action like modern medicine does. Ayurvedic practices have existed much before modern medicine practices come. Therefore, it’s important that we validate a number of Ayurvedic principles. So, the time is completely right that within the fight against coronavirus. We try a number of the Ayurvedic formulations against coronavirus,” he said.
Formerly, he gave the instance of China. “The Chinese have done alright in traditional Chinese medicine practices. They have been ready to show why a number of their medicines are effective,” Mande had said.
