Hear out plea for herbal mixture for COVID-19: HC tells Indian Medicine and Homeopathy director

The Madras High Court has ordered the director of Indian Medicine and Homeopathy to hear out some petitioners who have sought use of a herbal mixture (Siddha) for COVID-19. A Division Bench of Justice Vineet Kothari and Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana, disposing of the PILs from K. Muthu Kumar Nayakar and Dr. K. M. Senthamilzh Selvan, said they can forward their representations to the Siddha Central Research Institute.

For latest updates and live news on coronavirus, click here

The institute, in turn, may forward the representation with comments to the committee headed by the director of Indian Medicine and Homeopathy, the bench said. The director may consider the representations and pass appropriate orders in this regard, preferably within a period of one month, the court said. Nayakar claimed that the medicine contains nine herbal ingredients which should be mixed with the blood of a COVID- 19 patient and the mixture would kill the virus.

Despite repeated representations to the Central and state authorities to try out Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha Homeopathy drugs on COVID-19 patients, there was no response and hence the public interest litigation (PIL), said Dr Senthamiz Selvan. Reacting to the pleas, government pleader Jayaprakash Narayan said the authorities have already considered these kinds of representations and issued a detailed government order on April 23 providing for various kinds of medicines in various systems, including allopathy, homoeopathy, Unani and Siddha. As the petitioners still insisted that their representations to be considered separately, the court said it was issuing the present directive.