Since the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic, Indian scientists and researchers have risen to the occasion to come up with efficient and cost-effective solutions, and this, obviously, has not gone down well with the left-liberals and western media and scientific establishment.
The latest solutions by Indian researchers for testing and treatment of the Coronavirus, developed by Pune’s Mylab Discovery Solutions and Defence Research and Development Organisation respectively is also meeting with the same kind of pushback from the ‘intellectual establishment’.
A few days ago, Dr Balram Bhargava, Director General of the ICMR, explained about the new at-home testing kit that was approved by the medical research body. “Step 1 is that you buy the test kit from a chemist, Step 2 – download the mobile app. Step 3- conduct the test at home. Step 4 – click a mobile image and upload. The test result will be given,” Bhargava explained.
He added, “This ensures patient confidentiality, data is stored in a secure server and it is linked with the ICMR database. This should be available in the market within three to four days. One company has approval for home testing kits, three more are in the pipeline.”
Similarly, the 2-DG (2-deoxy-D-Glucose) drug, which was launched by the Union government on Monday, is also a cost effective and efficient way to cure Covid. The development of drug, that is offered by Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) with Dr Reddy’s Laboratories (DRL), lies in a research paper written by a group of resreachers on Ayurveda and allopathic medicine with Acharya Balakrishna, chairman, Patanjali Ayurved, is lead author.
As per an article by The Indian Express, the fellow authors of the research paper include three from Patanjali Ayurved (Pallavi Thakur; Narsingh Chandra Dev and Anurag Varshney); one from Vivekanand Education Society’s Institute of Technology (Shivam Singh); another from the Jain Vishva Bharati Institute (Viney Jain); and the vice-chancellor of Chennai-based SIMATS, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, (Rakesh Kumar Sharma).
A few doctors from Maharashtra’s Covid task force are yet skeptical about the use of 2-DG. “I would only use it in research mode till we have data in the public domain. Studies have not been done in the population of diabetics and those with coronary artery disease. It may be useful in mild to moderate disease after validation in research mode,” said Dr Shashank Joshi, expert member in the Maharashtra Covid task force.
Based on skepticism of a few doctors, the media houses have already started creating doubt around the drug, just like they did in the case of Coronavirus vaccines that led to vaccine skepticism. The Financial Express published an article titled ‘Regulators nod cuts little ice with doctors; experts flag unreliable clinical data’. Similarly, many other media houses including The Indian Express published articles raising questions over the effectiveness of the drug.
However, top doctors from the hospitals of Delhi are bullish about the drug given the fact its variant has already been used for treatment of Cancer and it has gone through the three-phase trial and meets all scientific requirements and improved the oxygen levels significantly among patients.
“We will have to see how well it performs once we prescribe this. So far, it is available only in select centres. Once we practically see this, it may work, because oxygen is something which most of the patients require,” Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan (LNJP) Hospital Director of Medicine and Medical Director Suresh Kumar said.
Previously, leftist media houses in India and opposition politicians, in collaboration with Western liberal media and the big pharmaceutical lobby, tried to cast aspersions on India’s vaccine and now the same playbook is being used against 2-DG.