New Delhi: Qualified AYUSH doctors and homoeopaths can prescribe government-approved tablets and mixtures only as immunity booster for Covid-19, the Ministry of Ayush told the Supreme Court Tuesday.
In an affidavit filed before the apex court, the ministry also said AYUSH doctors should not advertise any drug as a cure for Covid-19. It, however, emphasised the benefits of traditional Ayurveda practices and said they improved lifestyles, as well as the immune system.
The ministry’s affidavit was in response to an appeal filed by Dr A.K.B. Sadbhavana Mission School of Homeo Pharmacy against an order by the Kerala High Court on 21 August. The high court order prohibited AYUSH doctors from advertising or prescribing medicines as a cure for Covid-19, except those specifically mentioned in the Centre’s advisory on 6 March 2020.
The high court also gave liberty to state authorities to take appropriate action under the provisions of the Disaster Management Act, 2015 against erring AYUSH practitioners.
Submitting the government’s stand, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the high court’s interpretation of Centre’s guidelines was correct. A bench led by Justice Ashok Bhushan took Mehta’s statement as well as the affidavit on record and disposed of the matter.
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Guidelines for use of AYUSH medicines
The Kerala High Court, acting on a PIL filed by a lawyer, had ordered that alternative practices such as homoeopathy, Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and naturopathy can be used to enhance immunity to reduce the risk of Covid-19.
This order, the appeal before the apex court contended, was against the AYUSH ministry’s 8 April guidelines that allowed civic authorities to use alternative drugs to deal with the novel coronavirus.
In its affidavit Tuesday, the AYUSH ministry clarified its position. The government said that in view of the “unprecedented and unforeseen precarious situation”, the Ministry of AYUSH had decided to augment and strengthen its response toward Covid-19 by using traditional healthcare practices.
Traditional practices boost immunity
According to the government’s affidavit, the AYUSH ministry had issued two guidelines — one in January and another in March.
Both guidelines had prescribed intervention and preventive management steps under the homoeopathic practices at three stages — preventive and prophylactic, symptom management of Covid-like illnesses and add-on interventions to the conventional care.
These guidelines were prepared by director generals of research councils and directors of national institutes and after vetting by the interdisciplinary AYUSH Research and Development Task Force at the Ministry of AYUSH.
The ministry, while issuing the advisory, had also clearly mentioned that medicines are to be administered as preventive measure or as add-on to conventional treatment.
“It is submitted that as per the finding of the Research Councils under the Ministry of AYUSH, these traditional practices provided lifestyle advocacies to boost immunity which could have played pivotal role in prevention of various kind of infectious diseases,” read the government’s affidavit.
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The information published is factually incorrect. The Government of India had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court stating that Homeopathy can be prescribed as an add-on medicine. The Ministry of Ayush had also issued guidelines for prescription of Homeopathy medicines by institutionally qualified Homeopathy practitioners. Secondly and most importantly the observation that the Hon’ble Supreme Court has disposed of the Petition is false. The Hon’ble Supreme Court had reserved Judgment in the case after hearing the counsel for the Petitioner and the Ld. Solicitor General of India. I am the counsel for the Petitioner in the instant case. You can verify the particulars from the website of the Hon’ble Supreme Court and the Diary number of the case is 19638 of 2020. Kindly withdraw the post from the website.
Alopethy is evidane base medicine system, but in covid 19 there is no evidence,naither they believe in herbal medicines becouse they think this our shop will close soon. We have evidence to eliminate covid positive to negative by cow Amrit chikitasha padhati
How coukd they say that my dad cured many corona patients in just 15 -20 days and he is an ayurvedic doctor and professor . They are nkt dumb that govt is stopping them to play their roles and moreover the patients cured in hospitals are having a lots of sideeffect but the patients he cured got the minimum side effects and yes they all were at their critical stage . The govt has gone nuts not trusting their own cultural foundations
Is there a drug which can be prescribed by mbbs, MD, ms, frcs, frcp as a cure for covid 19 ?
Thank you All, sir for valuable information..
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