Maharashtra, Rajasthan not to allow sale of Ramdev's Coronil

Amid the ongoing controversy over Ramdev's company Patanjali Ayurveda introducing a 'cure' for coronavirus infection, Maharashtra and Rajasthan governments said that they won't allow the sale of the medicine in their states.

While Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh warned the yoga guru that the state government won't allow the sale of 'spurious' medicines, Rajasthan Health Minister Raghu Sharma also said that the state government will not allow the sale of Patanjali's Ayurvedic formulation.

Patanjali Ayurveda, while presenting the Coronil medicine on Tuesday had claimed that it has found a cure for coronavirus infection.

'The National Institute of Medical Sciences, Jaipur will find out whether clinical trials of @PypAyurved's 'Coronil' were done at all. An abundant warning to @yogrishiramdev that Maharashtra won't allow sale of spurious medicines. #MaharashtraGovtCares #NoPlayingWithLives,' Deshmukh tweeted.

In Jaipur, Sharma told reporters, "We will not give permission to Patanjali to sell their anti-Corona drug in the state. We will decide once they get approval from Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)." .

"There is currently no medicine for corona, WHO, ICMR has no medicine or vaccine. Any clinical trial has to be conducted with ICMR's permission, any clinical trial without ICMR's permission is not legal as per my knowledge," he added.

The minister further said that the government would not have had any problems if the company would have advertised and claimed it was an immunity booster product.

"We are not against Ayurveda, it is an ancient science and practice. We are ourselves distributing kadha here in Rajasthan to boost immunity. There is no fight between Ayurveda versus Allopathy here," he added.

Hours after the launch of Coronil on Tuesday, the AYUSH ministry had asked the firm to provide the details, telling it to stop advertising it till the issue is examined.

At the launch, the company had claimed that its medicine can cure the contagious disease within seven days.

It said Coronil, taken along with another product developed by it, had shown a 100 per cent success rate in clinical trials on infected patients, except those on life support.

Ramdev had said the medicines were developed by Patanjali Research Center, Haridwar in association with privately-owned National Institute of Medical Science, Jaipur.