The World Health Organisation (WHO) has been at the forefront of China’s campaign to mislead the world about the Coronavirus Pandemic from the very beginning. But India has made it a point to sideline the China-backed WHO as a part of its fight against the Wuhan virus.
Now, India has once again snubbed the World Health Organisation- this time over the use of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). The WHO recently cast aspersions upon the anti-malarial drug, which is being touted as a possible cure for the novel Coronavirus. But India trusts the wisdom of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) more than the World Health Organisation (WHO).
From the very beginning, WHO has been making disastrous proposals in the fight against COVID-19 Pandemic. The Western world relied upon the WHO initially and was therefore ravaged by the Chinese virus, but India has made it a point to ignore the biased organisation ruthlessly.
Becoming a marketing agent for faulty Chinese testing kits, the WHO had advised “test test test” but the head of ICMR said, “There will be no indiscriminate testing. Isolation, Isolation, isolation.”
The criminally incompetent WHO had also given the absurd advice of not using masks. Here too, India showed greater scientific temper and Indian people, from poor to rich, were using masks even when the virus had not spread in the country.
Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Shekher Mande has now said that ICMR’s conclusion of the anti-malarial drug having no side effects in treatment of Coronavirus patients should be trusted.
The ICMR itself said on Tuesday that Indian researchers have found no side-effects when it comes to the use of HCQ and we should continue using the drug as a preventive treatment for COVID-19.
Mande said, “We should trust the judgement of ICMR. ICMR people are exceptionally well qualified in this. If they say it should be continued we should trust their judgement and will continue this drug.”
This comes days after WHO suspended the clinical trials of HCQ citing a report published by The Lancet which claimed that the use of the anti-malarial drug increased death risk by 34 per cent and also caused a 137 per cent increased risk of serious heart arrhythmias.
It must be noted that The Lancet’s conclusions are not based on a randomised clinical trial, rather it has used hospital registries to conclude that critical patients, when administered Hydroxychloroquine, did not show any improvement but in some cases, their condition actually worsened.
The CSIR Director General said, “The Lancet study is based on hospital registry data. That is not a randomised clinical trial. It is only an analysis of hospital registers around the world. But still, in some people, the conditions have worsened, and the WHO temporarily halted the use of the drug. I am sure the WHO will take considered call in the coming time.”
WHO has clearly taken a tendentious call to cast aspersions upon the anti-malarial drug even though no randomised clinical trials have been conducted, and this is why India is once again sidelining the infamous intergovernmental organisation.
But ICMR and other research bodies in India do not care for WHO’s bizarre and unscientific proposals and suggestions. From enforcing lockdowns instead of indiscriminate testing to using masks against WHO’s advice not to use masks, India has contradicted WHO on every single front getting vindicated every single time.
And now India is all set to contradict the WHO all over again, this time by using the Hydroxychloroquine as a preventive treatment for COVID-19 patients. Modi government has once again shown that it doesn’t care for China’s crony masquerading as an intergovernmental organisation.