Hyderabad: Unani drugs that help resist Covid approved

Hyderabad: The Department of Ayush has approved of a few Unani medicines for boosting virus resistance and strengthening immunity.

According to officials, the Director of Ayush, Dr V S Alagu Varshini, some medicines which were submitted to the government for approval were finalised at the meeting. "These have been in the pipeline and awaiting government finds to make them available medicines on a large-scale. At yesterday's (Saturday) meeting we were asked to focus on two-three medicines which could be administered to patients. These were tested and would be beneficial," said an official.

This comes as a relief for the doctors at Government Unani Hospital, who had put up the proposal in March. They have been trying hard to seek approval from the State government to administer Unani medicines to the Covid-19 patients to bolster their resistance to the deadly virus.

The medicines that would ease respiratory ailments would be helpful in getting rid of influenza in patients infected with Coronavirus. The matter was taken up with CM K Chandrashekar Rao and other officials concerned for the consent to use the medicines to treat Covid patients.

While a range of medicines have been already administered to patients infected by the virus in parts of Old City by private institutions, Al-Arif Unani General Hospital and Unani Research Institute doctors claimed to be getting satisfactory results. The hospital also organised free distribution of unani medicines as part of preventing infection of Covid-19 in the Old City.

"The Unani system also conceptualises Hifz-e-ma-Taqaddum (preventive medical care) and Tiryaq (anti-dote) against a variety of Ajsaam-e-Ghareeba & Ajsaame-e-Khabeesa (viruses and microbes). Out of 1,500 drugs used in the Unani treatment for several diseases, the specific drugs used in the respiratory disorders are compound drugs as a 'Tiryaq-e-Arba' systemically and 'Tiryaq-e-Azam' locally as nebulizer and sanitizers. These have been the drugs of choice since centuries for pandemic outbreak,'' explained Dr Syed Tawheed Ahmed of Al-Arif Unani General Hospital and Unani Research Institute at Bandlaguda.