The first of the webinar series, being organized by the Ayush Valley Foundation in association with the Ayurveda & Health Tourism Magazine, was held on Saturday with eminent Ayurvedic academicians and practitioners focusing on the ‘topic ‘Can we live with Corona’.

The virtual meet evoked wide response with participants from across the world attending the over two-hour event. The panelists included Dr Narendra S Bhatt, Mumbai-based eminent Ayurvedic scholar and Head of CRIA Consultants Pvt Ltd, Dr J L N Sastry, Chief Executive Officer, National Medicinal Plant Board, and Dr Cornelis Peters, Director, Europa Ayurveda Centre, Netherlands. Dr Madan Thangavelu, noted Genome Biologist from the University of Cambridge, UK, moderated the discussions.

The speakers batted for clinical trials and proper documentation of Ayurvedic solutions. Dr Sastry said the AYUSH Ministry has initiated clinical trials of AYUSH medicines/interventions regarding Covid-19 and the results would be out by September end.

“We’ve already initiated the trial of AYUSH 64, a poly-herbal antimalarial formulation. The clinical research of ‘Ashwagandha’ will start this week while that regarding Ayurveda medicines like Guduchi will commence soon. We expect the results to be out by September end,” Sastry said.

Dr Narendra Bhatt observed that viral infections like Covid-19 would become severe if the body fails to adapt to the stress. “In viral infections, the causative agents play a game of hide and seek. They pale out initially only to come back stronger with multiple complications which make the treatment difficult… The ayurvedic solutions should consist of four targets – prevention, genetic changes of the virus, biological make up (proteins) and the symptoms,” he said.

Dr Cornelis Peters pointed out that there should be a common model of investigation from the Ayurvedic point of view so as to facilitate research and documentation. “In Netherlands, we’re engaged in research with different herbal medicine combinations. We’re growing at least 20 Ottamoolis,” he said.

The next webinar is slated to be held on July 4.