AYUSH Ministry's health advisory to use Ayurveda, Unani, Homeopathy for prevention from coronavirus draws criticism

Ayush Ministry has put up an advisory regarding prevention from the novel coronavirus that has taken life of nearly 170 people in China and has affected 1700 people.

The Ministry tweeted on Tuesday that coronavirus can be prevented by using Unani, Homeopathic and Ayurvedic medicines.

A similar advisory was released by PIB. It said, "Homoeopathy for prevention of coronavirus infections, unani medicines useful in the symptomatic management of coronavirus infection."

These health advisories are drawing a lot of flaks from netizens.

A Twitterati Shruti Chaturvedi tweeted, "Umm what? This is such blatant misinformation being spread by the government! Corona Virus is as new as today's sunrise and thousand year old "science" knew it's cure? Bother to call China and impart your knowledge to them na."

Twitter user Shaantanu Singh said, "Official government outlets promoting 'alternative medicine' for a currently raging epidemic that has just crossed into the country. This, while China builds entire hospitals in a week and combats its second epidemic since SARS. Keep electing fake degree chaiwalas, India."

A twitter handle @GorwayGlobal took a jibe at PIB, "This is absolute madness. The advice is a mix of (A) standard WHO advice (hygiene, hand washing, etc) and (B) a series of herbs/potions etc which are at best useless, at worst toxic due to processing impurities. But the real danger is people will ignore (A) and practice (B)."

Another Twitter handle @YogaVedanta slammed goevrnment for circulating these advisories. It said, "This is not just ridiculous, downright shameful. It's still wondering why this govt is so obsessed with quack medicine over serious health crisis. Govt will lose credibility pushing things like in the time of global crisis."