IS IT TIME FOR AYURVEDA TO REINVENT AND REPURPOSE ITSELF?

COVID-19 remains a global disaster. Worse, it was a preventable disaster. A World Health Organization official said that it is reclassifying the highly contagious triple-mutant Covid variant spreading in India as a “variant of concern,” indicating that it’s become a global health threat. Every healthcare system is stretched to the limit and the coming days are going to be a challenge that will test the Indian Healthcare infrastructure and personnel unlike any other time in history as can be understood by Dr Devi Shetty’s statement. Amidst all these developments, we have to question the role of Ayurveda in the management of Covid 19 and its varied clinical presentations. Though these efforts have been initiated and widely promoted, the ground reality remains that there is a lot of confusion whether the state governments have allowed Ayurveda practitioners to treat Covid 19 cases officially. However, many vaidyas across India are managing mild, moderate and even severe cases of Covid 19 very effectively with encouraging results. Our concern is that the system of Ayurveda is not qualified to be a front runner in addressing the issues of such magnitude as a professional body of experts. What the Covid -19 pandemic has exposed is the lack of co-ordination in the healthcare system of our country and more so in the field of Ayurveda. There is no platform through which Ayurveda doctors can share their data in real time. There is no doubt that Ayurveda has the answers to many of the diseases plaguing mankind. Decades of work by eminent physicians has proved this. The problem is that of documentation and this is the root cause of all the controversies and questions about its efficacy and validity. Thus the question: Is it time for Ayurveda to Repurpose Itself?