Agartala, Dec 17 (IANS): After Gujarat, Kerala and a few other states, the Tripura government has started distribution of a homeopathic drug to boost the immunity of the people against coronavirus, officials said on Thursday.
Tripura Government Medical Officer (Homeopathic) Surjya Sen said that following the advice of the Union AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy) Ministry, the state's Directorate of Health Services has started distribution of homeopathic drug Arsenicum Album-30 from Wednesday to improve the immunity of the people in a bid to curb the nCoV infection.
"Initially we have planned to distribute the Arsenicum Album-30 free of cost among 50,000 families residing in the Agartala Municipal Corporation (AMC) areas. After considering the people's response and the effectiveness of the drug, we may distribute this to more people in different parts of the state.
"However, on the first and second day on Wednesday and Thursday, the response of the people is huge and more than our expectations," Sen told IANS.
He said that the homeopathic drug had been provided to the people in some localities in Gujarat, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and positive results were found there to prevent the Covid-19 pandemic.
"Above one year old babies to people of any age can take the homeopathic drug on an empty stomach daily for three days as a prophylactic medicine against the infection.
"The dose should be repeated after one month by maintaining the same schedule in case the coronavirus infection prevails in the community."
Sen, who is also the chairman of the Arsenicum Album-30 distribution committee, said that the Gujarat government had claimed that 99.6 per cent of the people who availed remedies as prophylaxis during their quarantine period tested negative for Covid-19.
He said that Arsenicum Album-30 is being distributed from the government's 14 homeopathic dispensaries to make Tripura a Covid-19 free state.
Tripura's health officials said that the coronavirus caseload has touched 33,095 in the state with 32,406 recoveries. The active cases have come down to 274 while 375 people have succumbed to the disease.
The northeastern state's recovery and fatality rates are 98.03 per cent and 1.13 per cent respectively.