Correspondence Address:
Prof. P K Goswami
North Eastern Institute of Ayurveda and Homoeopathy, Shillong - 793 018, Meghalaya
India

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Life is not easy; happiness, as well as unhappiness, is two sides of the same coin. Ayurveda preaches the balance of all the body humors in equilibrium state covering 4 dimensions of the individual. Diseases occur due to different exogenous and endogenous factors. Epidemic and communicable diseases are affecting the mass population across the globe, creates great concern for medical scientists, particularly and the general population in common. Ayurveda has a treasure house covering different principles and resources, variable in terms of herbs, minerals, animal products, and ethics of food and behavior. These composite principles of Ayurveda promote the capabilities of individuals to survive in divergent situations by modifying these principles of acclimatization in different situations.

nCOVID-19 pandemic has created great suffering and loss to the community in terms of loss of human being and economic loss. The combined effort has been undertaken all over the globe by medical professional, bio-scientist, epidemiologists, and different administrative bodies. Different preventive guidelines starting from lockdown to social distance are effective measures to control the outbreak by preventing mass destruction of the population. Subsequently, certain immune-boosting as well as combined curative therapies have been undertaken by different scientific bodies and health professionals and this situation has been compelled to explore the different traditional and complementary systems of medicine of different countries to support and confidence-building among the mass population. Properly restricted lifestyle, proper dietary regimen, and immune-boosting diet and regimen prove to be beneficial in different degrees of success.

Though scientist has very successfully come out with different preventive methods of vaccines and found to be effective and it has been already administered phase-wise at large scale globally.

Prevention is better and vaccination is the only solution until found a suitable medicine of the nCOVID-19 virus is still awaited. Changing the behavior of the virus may also draw concerns in the medical fraternity and among scientists.

The principles of Ayurveda covering preventive and curative aspects enumerated in classics viz concepts such as Upastambha, Dinacharya, Ritucharya, and Sadvritta (Code of Conduct) which covers the majority of the principles which advocated by modern epidemiologist and policymakers. But Ayurveda has a limitation in creating scope for designing vaccines, but on the other hand, very rich principles of dietetics as per variations of seasons, climatic condition, geographical distribution and constitution of the individual has very in-depth meaning and scope. Only need is to explore and validations with scientific temperament. Fundamentals of Ayurveda and the traditional health-care system may be different from Western thoughts but the origin of principles of Ayurveda based on the holistic understanding of nature and its universal phenomenon, which is everlasting truth.

The good number of Ayurvedic preparation has been tried for prevention in different parts of the country in direct/indirect supervision of medical professionals or self-administration of this herbal preparation as adjuvant to dietetics and daily use by the mass population. Indian sub-continent has greatly reduced mortality rate and complication of the nCOVID-19 infected population. Moreover, a great portion of the population has been successfully prevented transmission or sufferings of it. Whatever may be the reasoning, the majority of the herbal drug preparation and principles are taken up, these are in reality old practices of the Indian sub-continent up-to few years back and still in practice in rural India, in terms of custom and traditions supported by rituals of religion and social beliefs.

Rapid industrialization, global economic changes and invasion over cultural beliefs of the Indian sub-continent has forced people of India to keep them away from a rich cultural heritage which is definitely a part of age-old very rich civilization based on the holistic approach and homogenous co-existence with nature. Days will come, different type of new diseases will come due to the changes and variation with the environment but human being will definitely survive with four-dimensional basic health requirement and require basic traits like upastambha, ethics (Sadvritta), and principles to be followed which governs dietetics accordingly suitability based on geographical distribution and climatic changes.

It is observed tremendous growth of the AYUSH pharmaceuticals industry covering pharmaceutical preparation and marketing of health ingredients both in the national and international markets. Post-COVID, economic influence in pharmaceutical industry is noticeable events. Hence, indigenous pharmaceutical industry has opportunity and flourish and it also brings challenges for international pharmaceutical giants which basically deal with Western medicines. So, policymakers and players in the economic dimension should have judiciously provided support and legal safeguard to pharmaceutical business based on AYUSH clusters component of drugs and cosmetics.