Patanjali Ayurved Coronil, a vaccine to boost immunity to fight against the Covid-19, developed by Yoga guru Ramdev. The yoga guru claims it to be certified, which has drove it to a controversy.
The vaccines was launched at its launch event on February 19 in the presence of Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan and Union Minister of road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari. The vaccine is a Patanjali product which presents the vaccine as the “first evidence-based medicine for COVID-19”.
At the launch event where the yoga guru Ramdev and the Union Ministers were present, there was a poster which was claiming that the “medicine” was CoPP and WHO GMP certified – meaning it holds a certificate of pharmaceutical product (CoPP) and is recognised by the World Health Organisation’s Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP). Both these standards approximately define quality assurance in medicinal products.
However, the WHO later clarified that it has not reviewed any traditional vaccine to fight against COvid-19. “@WHO has not reviewed or certified the effectiveness of any traditional medicine for the treatment #COVID19,” tweeted the WHO South-East Asia.
At the launch event Patanjali in one of its statements said, “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.”
One of the top executive of Patanjali Rakesh Mittal, also said that the Patanjali made Coronil has been recognized by WHO by tweeting, “Patanjali has made history in the field of Ayurveda as Coronil has been recognized by WHO as First Evidence Based Medicine for Corona,” but later he deleted his tweet.
Later, the Patanjali Ayurved managing director Acharya Balkrishna gave a clear clarification by tweeting “We want to clarify to avoid confusion that our 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”.
If a country wants to import Pantanjali’s Coronil, it will request a CoPP from the country’s regulator Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) through Patanjali. The certificate is then issued by the DCGI in accordance with WHO’s guidelines.
By seeing the move welcomed by the Union Health Minister the Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi slammed the center by saying, “I hope our Health Minister stops embarrassing the nation with such claims to promote Coronil. I strongly believe in Ayurveda but to claim it as a WHO guaranteed cure against COVID and endorse it, is nothing but cheating as well as misleading the nation”.
The Coronil was the first vaccine came out to be as a fight against the coronavirus. It was July 2020 when it was first announced even when the other vaccines were far away from their final trials. However, the AAYUSH Ministry told that the Coronil can only be sold as an immunity booster but can not be a full fledged cure against the Covid-19.
