MUMBAI:
Maharashtram India’s richest state, on Thursday banned a “spurious” coronavirus treatment manufactured by a company founded by popular yoga guru, which he says has a 100% record in curing patients.Baba Ramdev, co-founder of Patanjali and a household name in India, launched Coronil to much fanfare on Tuesday, but hit a roadblock when New Delhi and some state governments expressed scepticism.
“Maharashtra won’t allow the sale of spurious medicine,” state minister Anil Deshmukh tweeted on Thursday, adding authorities would probe whether any clinical trials had been run.Deshmukh could not be reached for a comment. Patanjali did not immediately respond to an email from Reuters seeking comment.
The state reported some 3,890 new infections on Thursday, taking its tally up to 142,900 cases. It has recorded 6,739 deaths.
Hours after its launch, India’s federal government asked Patanjali to provide details about Coronil, trials and sample size and asked the company to stop advertising the product until it had been approved.
In another blow to Patanjali’s Coronil, an Ayurvedic medicine developed by Yoga guru Ramdev’s firm with alleged capacity to treat coronavirus disease, the Uttarakhand government has claimed on Wednesday that the license, issued to the Ayurveda products manufacturing company on June 12, pertained to the development of immunity boosters and not a medicinal cure for coronavirus.
The state government’s directorate of Ayurved and Unani services has said that it intends to issue a notice to Patanjali Ayurved over the issue, said officials.
“We are checking the violation in the context of the claims in the light of The Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 and Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954. We will check what sorts of violations have happened and accordingly issue a notice. If the violations are found true, then their license will be cancelled,” said Anand Swaroop, Director, directorate of Ayurved and Unani services, Uttarakhand.The AYUSH ministry, in a statement on Tuesday, asked the licensing authority of the Uttarakhand government to provide copies of the license and product approval details of the Ayurvedic medicines being projected as the treatment for Covid-19.
Rajasthan Health Minister Raghu Sharma has also demanded legal action from the centre against Ramdev for misleading peopl at a challenging time like this and declared that anyone selling or distributing these pills will be put behind bars.
Ramdev, who is seen as a supporter of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said at the launch that the medicine consisted of ancient Ayurvedic ingredients that boost immunity and had a 100% cure rate.
India reported a record increase of nearly 17,000 coronavirus infections on Thursday, taking the total to 473,105 with 14,894 deaths.
Maharashtra, home to India’s financial hub of Mumbai, has been the hardest hit by the pandemic, accounting for more than 25% of cases.
Earlier yesterday, Ramdev had launched Coronil and Swasari as Ayurvedic cure for Covid-19, stressing that the medicines had been tested in “a clinical case study and clinical controlled trial”, which found that “69 percent patients recovered in three days and 100 % patients recovered within seven days” of the treatment.