On June 23, Patanjali Ayurved claimed that its preparations, ‘Coronil’ would cure COVID-19 in just a week. Scientists, researchers, physicians and media registered their strong protest and expressed robust disbelief for the outrageous and misleading ads. The company claimed that their medicine was tested in a randomised controlled trial (RCT) among COVID-19 positive patients and showed “promising results”.
Several public health activists pointed out that the claim would attract provisions of Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954.
The government, through the Ministry of AYUSH responded to these protests and told the company to stop advertising the drug as a cure for COVID-19.
The yet-to-be published RCT enrolled 100 patients who had tested positive for Covid19. Of the 100 participants 45 got the Ayurveda drug and 50 got a placebo. The claim was that 69% (31 persons) of those on the drug tested negative on the third day, compared to 25 of those on the placebo arm of the trial.
The trial design, sample size, inclusion and exclusion criteria, follow up of patients, definition of primary and secondary outcomes and statistical analysis left much to be desired.
Ramya Kannan on behalf of The Hindu spoke to Dr Madhukar Pai and me on this issue. We expressed our concerns that the hurry, hype and marketing for drugs (Ayurveda and Favipiravir) even before results were published were ‘just not science’. I argued that the priority is to have safe, efficacious drugs that can be used in the real world setting. And this evidence would only come for a high-quality, well-designed clinical trial.
