MP CM Chouhan pushes for ‘Indian way of treatment’ as COVID-19 cases, death toll mount

Even as the positive cases and death toll of COVID-19 surged in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan pushed for adopting ‘Indian traditional way of treatment’ to tackle the pandemic.

Chouhan’s move comes just a day after he launched ‘Jeevan Amrit’ scheme in the state under which packets of an Ayurvedic concoction, aimed at boosting immunity, is being distributed free of cost to citizens of the state.

On Tuesday, according to the bulletin of the state health department, the COVID-19 positive cases went up to 2,387, the fourth highest in country, and the death toll surged by 10 in the past 24 hours to 120, the third highest in the country.

The chief minister, during a review meeting, said that the situation was improving in the state with many people recovering and the percentage of positive patients among collected samples going down.

The state health bulletin showed that of the 2,387 positive cases in MP, 377 (15.7 per cent) had recovered. The national recovery rate average is 24 per cent.

During the review meeting, additional chief secretary of health department Mohammad Suleman said that the percentage of positive patients in collected samples was decreasing. As on Tuesday, only 223 had tested positive out of the 3,942 samples tested. Bhopal has shown significant improvement as only 30 out of 2030 samples tested positive. Similarly only four of 225 samples in Ujjain and only one out of 222 in Jabalpur were positive while no positive cases were found in 225 samples from Gwalior.

During the review, it was also mentioned that the test per million population in Indore, Bhopal and Ujjain was at record level. The national average is 517 per million, while in Bhopal it is 3,316 per million, in Indore 2,486 per million and in Ujjain 3,870 per million.

‘Adopt Indian traditional way of treatment’

Speaking to spiritual leaders through video conferencing on the occasion of Shankaracharya Jayanti, Chouhan said that Indian methods should also be adopted to tackle challenges like COVID-19. He said that the global affliction of the disease has put a focus on how to use traditional healing techniques like yoga, mantra and music and others to deal with it.

Chouhan said that efforts should be made to increase the morale of patients as it is known that many diseases are cured by techniques like touch therapy. That might not be helpful in case of COVID-19, but along with the prevailing methods of treatment, other fundamental healing methods existing in the Indian tradition could be used, he said.

Chouhan said that along with treating the disease, making the human body resistant to that disease is also important and in this regard, a solution should be found by consulting Ayurveda scholars, naturopathy experts and spiritual gurus.

The chief minister also spoke of the initiative of the state government of using Ayurvedic Kadha (concoction) in Madhya Pradesh to tackle the challenge of COVID-19 and said that the initiative has also found echo in other states. He said that the concoction is useful to boost immunity of people so that infections including COVID-19 could be prevented.

Under the Jeevan Amrit scheme launched on Monday, the special trikuta churna-kadha packets prepared by state AYUSH department is being distributed free of cost to over one crore people in urban and rural areas of state.

The chief minister said that preparing the concoction was very easy. Medicinal condiment combination trikuta churna including Pipal, Sonth (dry ginger) and black pepper are to be grinded and boiled with basil (tulsi) leaves in one litre of water. When the water boils down to half, the concoction is ready and has to be consumed in lukewarm condition three to four times a day.