Stop advertisement of ‘ayurvedic COVID-19 medicine’: AYUSH to Patanjali

• Yoga guru Baba Ramdev launched first-ever ayurvedic COVID-19 medicine 'Coronil' on Tuesday

• Ministry of AYUSH asked Baba Ramdev to stop advertising the medicine 'Coronil' until the results are 'duly examined' 

New Delhi/ Haridwar: Central government has effectively put a brake on any sort of advertisement and publicizing of Patanjali's "first ayurvedic medicine" for COVID-19. On Tuesday Yoga guru Baba Ramdev announced in a press conference that Patanjali has founded an ayurvedic remedy to COVID-19 called 'Coronil'. He claimed Coronil is an effective medicine against the highly contagious coronavirus disease. The scientific community of the world is still struggling to find an effective drug against COVID-19. However, soon as he announced the first ayurvedic COVID-19 medicine the government took cognizance of it and said "Facts of the claim and details of the stated scientific study are not known to the Ministry".

Ministry of AYUSH has said in a statement issued Tuesday evening that "the concerned Ayurvedic drug manufacturing company has been informed that such advertisements of drugs including Ayurvedic medicines are regulated under the provisions of Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954 and Rules thereunder and the directives issued by the Central Government in the wake of COVID outbreak". The statement further mentioned that "Ministry had also issued a Gazette Notification No. L.11011/8/2020/AS dated April 21, 2020, stating the requirements and the manner the research studies on COVID-19 with Ayush interventions/medicines should be undertaken" which in a way means that Patanjali did not follow the guidelines issued by the ministry and went on its own. Not just this, Patanjali did not even keep the Ministry of AYUSH in the loop over the testing of the ayurvedic COVID-19 medicine.

The Ministry further has said that "in order to make this Ministry aware of the facts of the aforesaid news and verify the claims, Patanjali Ayurved Ltd has been asked to provide at the earliest details of the name and composition of the medicines being claimed for COVID treatment; site(s)/hospital(s), where the research study was conducted for COVID-19; protocol, sample size, Institutional Ethics Committee clearance, CTRI registration and results from data of the study(ies)". The ministry has ordered Patanjali Ayurved to "stop advertising/publicizing such claims until the issue is duly examined. Ministry has also requested concerned State Licensing Authority of Uttrakhand Government to provide copies of license and product approval details of the Ayurvedic medicines being claimed for the treatment of COVID-19".

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