By Shakir Husain
NEW DELHI, May 8 (NNN-BERNAMA) — The Indian government is looking at local traditional medicines to find both preventive remedies and add on treatment against the new coronavirus.
Federal Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said India has a history of such medicine and the Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) “is working to address the COVID 19 pandemic problem in the country through clinical studies” of traditional systems.
These will provide both preventive remedies and add-on interventions in treating the disease, according to a Ministry of AYUSH statement on Thursday.
It said the clinical studies are a joint initiative of the Ministry of AYUSH, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Ministry of Science and Technology through the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) with technical support of the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR).
In a separate development, the ICMR has nixed a government proposal to conduct a study on the benefits of the Ganga river’s water in treating coronavirus patients.
The council said it needed scientific data before undertaking such a study, which was proposed by the ministry that handles national water resources.
— NNN-BERNAMA
