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Maharashtra ban on Coronil
Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment
- Baba's medicine banned: Home Minister of Maharashtra, Anil Deshmukh, said that sale of Coronil (Yoga guru Ramdev’s Patanjali group's medicine for Covid-19) will not be allowed in the state without proper certification from competent health organisations like WHO, IMA and others.
- Government stand: Deshmukh said that even the IMA questioned the said ‘clinical trials’ of Coronil & WHO refuted the false claims made by Patanjali Ayurveda for giving any certificate regarding its effectiveness for Covid19 treatment. Launching such a drug hurriedly and being endorsed by two senior Central Union Ministers is highly deplorable.
- Controversy: On February 19, Ramdev, at a press meet, said Coronil had received certification from AYUSH Ministry as a drug that can be used as “supporting measure in Covid-19” and as an immuno-booster. The press meet was attended by Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari and Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, a qualified doctor who is also chair of World Health Organization’s (WHO) Executive Board. The health minister said that during British colonial times, Ayurveda should have been recognised, its knowledge publicised, but India had to wait till Independence to do that.
- Patanjali said that “Coronil has received the Certificate of Pharmaceutical Product (CoPP) from the Ayush section of Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation as per the WHO certification scheme.” It called Coronil “an evidence-based medicine to fight Covid-19”. It claimed the drug can be exported to 158 countries.
- The WHO distanced itself from the product. Without taking names, WHO South-East Asia said it had not reviewed or certified the effectiveness of any traditional medicine for the treatment of COVID-19.
- False claims: Social media criticised Patanjali’s “false claims”, prompting CEO Acharya Balkrishna to clarify that their certificate had come from the Government of India, and not the WHO. "The WHO GMP compliant COPP certificate to Coronil is issued by DCGI, Government of India. It is clear that WHO do not approve or disapprove any drugs. WHO works for building a better, healthier future for people all over the world".
- WHO certification scheme: The WHO does not “approve or disapprove” drugs. It says its role in the area of medicines regulatory support is two-fold. One aspect relates to the development of internationally recognised norms, standards and guidelines. The second aspect relates to providing guidance, technical assistance and training in order to enable countries to implement global guidelines to meet their specific medicines regulatory environment and needs. Its certification scheme is for finished pharmaceutical products, and is a voluntary agreement among various countries. The scheme is an “administrative instrument that requires a participating Member State (a certifying country), upon application by a commercially interested party (the applicant company), to certify/attest to the competent authority of another participating Member State (the recipient country) that: "A specific pharmaceutical product is authorised for marketing in the certifying country, or if not, the reason why authorisation has not been accorded; The manufacturing facilities and operations conform to good manufacturing practices (GMP) as recommended by WHO.”
- What IMA said: The Indian Medical Association (IMA) had on February 22 criticised the “blatant lie of WHO certification” made by Panjali Ayurved, and demanded an explanation from Harsh Vardhan for endorsing it.
- “Being a Health Minister of the country, how justified is it to release such falsely fabricated unscientific product to people of the whole country and how ethical was it to promote the product in unethical, wrong and false ways,” the IMA statement said.
- The association also pointed out that as per the code of act of the Medical Council of India, no doctor can promote any drug, “whether for compensation or otherwise, any approval, recommendation, endorsement, certificate, report or statement” and said that it was “surprising that the Minister himself is promoting the drug (Coronil)”.
- The IMA then sought clarifications on the timeline for the clinical trial of Coronil, and what procedures were followed for the trials.
- Patanjali had claimed in 2020 also that Coronil could cure Covid-19, but the government had allowed it to sell the product only as an “immunity booster”. The company had claimed in June 2020 that its trials on “mild to moderately ill patients” were successful, and showed “100 per cent recovery of patients within seven days”.
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