CHENNAI: Thirty COVID-19 patients in Chennai have been discharged so far after being treated by Siddha medicine at the Jawahar College Campus.
“Out of the 30, six people took an exit test and were found to be negative. The rest were all stable,’’ Health Secretary Dr J Radhakrishnan told The New Indian Express.
He said they normally do not carry out exit tests for stable patients but these were done to highlight the efficacy of the Siddha treatment.
Currently, about 100 patients are still getting treated by Siddha in the city while other medicine systems like Ayurveda, homeopathy and naturopathy are also being experimented on patients across government hospitals and COVID care centres.
On May 29, the state government held a feasibility meeting on exploring the Indian system of medicine for treatment of COVID-19. Eight representatives from various systems participated and presented the treatment modalities which could reduce the viral load in patients.
In the meeting, State Development Policy Council (SDPC) Vice Chairman C Ponnaiyan suggested that the doctors go ahead with promoting the efficacy of the system and provide well documented clinical trials to establish it, according to sources.
Dr N Manavalan, Principal, Government Yoga and Naturopathic Medical College and Hospital, who was also the member of the panel, told Express that trials were going on at Stanley and Omandurar hospitals and the COVID care centres at Loyola and DG Vaishnav Colleges.
"Naturopathy treatment acts as a primary prevention method, helping in reducing the multiplication of the viral load. This method gives importance to the throat and nasal part of the body," he said.
Dr Manavala added that in COVID care centres, patients are taught yoga and pranayama and are made to do salt water gargling and steam inhalation. "Most of the patients are stable and are being continuously monitored," he said.
As of June 10, a total of 3146 COVID positive patients have been getting yoga and naturopathy treatment.
“We will surely expand the use of Indian medicine in the coming days. This system has shown results in Kerala too,’’ Dr Radhakrishnan said. He added that this system could work hand-in-hand with the allopathy treatment.
Panel members told Express that soon, outcomes of Indian medicine treatment for COVID patients will be published as a documented paper and presented to the government.