As India gingerly enters phase 1.0 of the Lockdown, government bodies have been issuing advisories on everything from office safety to precautions to take while visiting shopping malls.
On 11 March, FIT reported that the Telengana government is distributing the homeopathic formulation Arsenicum Album 30 issued by the Department of AYUSH. The pills are available for free and the guideline says to take 6 pills once daily for 3 days as prophylactic.
And on Monday, 8 June, the Indian Express reported that the medicine has been recommended by the state governments in Rajasthan, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. Mumbai civic authorities are distributing this drug to high-risk populations as a preventative. Reportedly, the drug is being distributed to prisoners by the Harayana prisons department and in Mumbai by the police.
The drug is under much debate, as there is no scientific evidence to back the claim that it is a prophylactic to COVID-19.
FIT reached out to Dr Kushal Banerjee, a leading homeopath in Delhi who had said "First we need to understand that this virus is new and each medical system is trying to fight it within its means. We have no data to prove that any medicine will help. In such a case, we can only estimate what will work.
Dr Sumit Ray, a critical care specialist, added, "as far as Immunomodulatory drugs are concerned, the science of these drugs have just not been studied within the accepted research modalities that exist today. So do they help? We don't have the evidence."
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