India To Test 4 Ayurvedic Drugs For Coronavirus Within A Week: Minister

New Delhi: India is working on four traditional medicine formulations to treat coronavirus infection and the trials will start soon, the country's AYUSH minister tweeted. AYUSH or short for ayurveda, yoga, unani, siddha and homeopathy is the country's traditional medicine ministry.

"The @moayush & the @CSIR_IND are working together on validating four Ayush formulations against #COVID19Pandemic and the trials will start within one week. These formulations will be tried as an add-on therapy and standard care for COVID-19 patients," Union Minister of State for AYUSH Shripad Y Naik tweeted.

The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research or CSIR, with which the AYUSH Ministry is working to conduct the traditional medicine trials, is one of the largest and most diversified publicly funded scientific and industrial research organisations in the world.

"I am sure and quite hopefull that, our traditional medicinal system will show the way to overcome this Pandemics," Mr Naik tweeted.

Doctors are trying a mix of treatment for the novel coronavirus - a virus never seen before and whose characteristics are still being studied - till the time a vaccine is developed, tested and produced in mass numbers.

Ayurveda or otherwise, so far the world hasn't found a cure for the coronavirus that's wholly backed by researchers and drug-makers unanimously. Trails of different drugs are going on.

Some medical experts have said that plasma therapy, which involves taking the antibody-rich plasma from the blood of a recovered COVID-19 patient, could help infected people fight the virus. But this treatment is also not one-hundred per cent backed by scientists as its effectiveness remains inconclusive.

A rapid coronavirus test touted by US President Donald Trump and used to test White House officials produces false negatives in almost half of all cases, according to a new study by researchers at NYU Langone Health, news agency AFP reported. This matter is one of the many examples of the pitfalls that those trying to make a vaccine for the highly infectious virus face.

Gilead's antiviral drug remdesivir in May received the US Food and Drug Administration's emergency use authorisation to treat COVID-19 patients. With no other approved treatment for COVID-19, interest in remdesivir has been growing, and the company is being closely watched on the pricing and distribution of the limited supply of the drug.

(Inputs and image from ndtv.com)