Thursday, June 25, 2020

Coronil got approval to treat cough and fever, but Patanjali sold it as ‘Covid cure’

New Delhi: Patanjali’s Coronil, which the company’s founder Baba Ramdev has touted as a cure for Covid-19, was approved for boosting immunity and treating cough and fever and not as a treatment for coronavirus, ThePrint has learnt.

The state licensing authority (SLA) of Uttarakhand, which falls under the Ministry of AYUSH, is now ready to shoot off a letter to the Haridwar-based Patanjali Ayurveda in connection with its bid to brand Coronil as a cure for Covid-19.

The company faces charges under two Acts, the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, and the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954, if proved guilty of making a false claim, the SLA told ThePrint.

“We will be sending a letter to Patanjali by the end of the day today. We haven’t approved the product for Covid-19 but only to boost immunity and treat cough, fever,” Dr Y.S. Rawat, joint director, SLA, Uttarakhand, said over a call Wednesday. 

Covid-19, which has triggered a pandemic around the world, currently has no proven cure.

“The company has to either prove how the drug could treat Covid-19 or else roll back the claim. Otherwise, we will suspend or cancel the licence given to Coronil,” he added.

Patanjali Ayurved spokesperson S.K. Tijarawala, however, told ThePrint that “everything is submitted well in order and as per the rules laid down by the government”.

How was the drug approved? 

The company applied for drug approval through an application dated 10 June. “The company had submitted the documents, as per the protocol including the formulation sheet (explaining the formula used to manufacture the drug), testing protocol (to check the efficacy of the drug) and label claim (which mentions that for what conditions the drug will be sold),” Rawat said. 

The department, he added, followed the standard procedure for drug approval, “where an expert committee considered the application and approved the drug on 12 June”.

“We had informed the company on the same day about the application clearance,” he said, adding that “the application was not complicated”.

“The drug is made of ashwagandha, giloy and tulsi. While the first ingredient is known for immunity-boosting properties, tulsi and giloy are given for treating cough and fever, respectively,” he added. 

Sections under which Patanjali could be booked 

The company could be charged under three sections of the two aforementioned Acts. According to Rawat, the firm is under the scanner for allegedly promoting the product with claims of “having magical properties” to cure Covid-19, labeling the product with misleading information, and advertising the products with misleading information. 

“The letter, which we will dispatch in sometime, charges the company for breaking the rules under Section 161 and Rule 170 of Drugs and Cosmetics Act,” he said. 

The charges, the officer said, pertained to “misleading consumers by printing wrong information on the label and… for inappropriate advertisements”. 

“The company will also be booked under Drugs and Magic Remedies Act (if proved guilty) as the company claims to ‘cure’ Covid,” he added.

The SLA will also be responding to a letter received from the Union Ministry of AYUSH Tuesday, where the latter had sought a response on the categories under which the drug was approved.

“We will send the same letter to the ministry to showcase our action against the company.”

Saturday, June 6, 2020

Ahmedabad, Modi's City, Worse Record

Though Delhi and Mumbai might seem to be worst off with the highest number of Covid-19 cases and deaths each day, Ahmedabad with less than half the population of these metros has the highest deaths per million population in the country. It also has the highest case fatality rate (CFR) — number of deaths per 100 cases — among the nine megapolises with populations of over 5 million. 

At 115 deaths per million, Ahmedabad is much worse than Mumbai in second place with 80 deaths per million. Among the top metros, Bangalore seems to be doing the best with just one death per million. When it comes to CFR, Chennai’s 0.9 is the lowest among the nine mega cities. The data is as of Friday morning. 

The comparison here is between the nine urban agglomerations — cities and their urban outgrowths, like Greater Mumbai or Greater Kolkata — in the country that has 5 million or more people living in them. 

A low CFR is often seen as a result of extensive testing and hence detecting of a large number of positive cases. The higher the number of positive cases, the denominator, the smaller the CFR would be. Ahmedabad’s CFR of 6.9 has been explained by many as the result of inadequate testing. But the city’s deaths per million figure suggests shows there is more to the poor handling of Covid cases than just inadequate testing. 

Even in absolute numbers, Ahmedabad which has recorded 953 deaths is second only to the Mumbai with 1,698 deaths. Delhi follows Mumbai with 650 deaths. Bangalore has recorded just 14 deaths so far and the least number of cases, just 428. 

Though many cities have been trying to draw comfort from their recovery rates, epidemiologists have repeatedly pointed out that in an infection like Covid where over 90% of those infected are expected to recover, the share of those recovering can only rise steadily with the passage of time and hence recovery rates are a misleading measure for progress in the fight against the disease. 

These nine urban agglomerations contribute over 1.3 lakh cases (nearly 60% of India’s total) and 4,299 deaths, over two-thirds of the country’s total. An urban agglomeration (UA) is continuous urban habitation that surrounds a city or the continuous geographical stretch of two or more cities which in many ways function as the same city. 

Mumbai UA for instance is constituted by the Municipal Corporations of Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai, Kalyan-Dombivali, Ulhasnagar and Mira Bhayandar. Similarly Kolkata UA spreads over the districts of Kolkata, North and South 24 Parganas, Hooghly and Howrah. Chennai UA has Chennai, Thiruvallur and Kancheepuram while Hydarabad UA includes Hyderabad, Rangareddy and Medak. Ahmedabad UA also includes Gandhinagar. 

The 2020 population estimates for these UAs from the United Nation’s World Urbanisation Prospects was used to calculate the deaths per million. The census of India does not include Delhi’s satellite districts like Ghaziabad and Gurgaon in the Delhi UA and hence Delhi’s cases as well as population are only for Delhi state or the city of Delhi. Delhi’s 2020 population is taken from the census population projections for states. 

The above is from TOI