Centre To Patanjali: 'Stop Advertising Coronil'

NEW DELHI: Yoga Guru Swami Ramdev and Acharya Balkrishna launched a new Ayurvedic based drug, Coronil for the treatment of COVID-19 and the drug claims to treat COVID-19 within 5 to 14 days. Hours after the launch of the Coronil kit, the Ministry of AYUSH has taken cognizance of the news being recently reported in the media about Ayurvedic medicines developed for the treatment of COVID-19 by Patanjali Ayurved Ltd, Haridwar (Uttrakhand) and released a notification.

It is said that, "Facts of the claim and details of the stated scientific study are not known to the ministry. 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-19 treatment; site(s)/hospital(s), where the research study was conducted for COVID-19; protocol, sample size, Institutional Ethics Committee clearance, CTRI registration and result data of the study (ies) and stop advertising/publicizing such claims till the issue is duly examined."

Speaking at a press conference held at Patanjali headquarter in Haridwar, Yoga Guru Ramdev said that Coronil has been tested in a randomised placebo-controlled clinical trial on COVID-19 patients. He asserted that, "We conducted a clinical case study and clinical controlled trial, and found 69 per cent patients recovered in three days and 100 per cent patients recovered in seven days."

Ramdev spoke with a media channel and said that they have taken all the permissions from the government right from the production of the drug to its clinical trials. He further added that, "We have sent all related information to the Ayush Ministry today, they will receive it soon. We have presented all details even to the media. We have not violated any laws."

The Yoga Guru reacted to the Ayush Ministry asking to stop advertising the corona kit. Ramdev asserted that " We are not doing any promotion advertisements based on false claims. If we conducted a clinical trial and found that 100 per cent of patients recovered, will we not tell that to people? Why will we lie?"

He further added that "The Ayush Ministry should also support our good work. If we had made false claims without conducting controlled clinical trials on purely myths or hearsay, they should reprimand us. But now that our clinical study has shown effective results, the government should also express pride. We have spoken to Ayush officials, they said we don't have information on the drug, so we sent  it to them." According to the reports, the Corona kit, priced at 545 would be available in India very soon. The kit contains medicines for 30 days.