The Ayush Ministry is in the process of identifying 12,500 health and wellness centres across the country to deliver traditional medicinal services at grass-root level with special focus on preventive health care keeping in view the rising instances of chronic lifestyle diseases, official sources have said.
The Central government is stressing on seamless integrationof two pillars of Ayushman Bharat — Health and Wellness Centres (HWCs) andPradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) — to achieve the “health forall” target.
According to official sources, the need for appointing AYUSHdoctors has been increasingly felt at the Primary Health Centres level,particularly following the success of a pilot project launched in 2016 in threedistricts – Bhilwara (Rajasthan), Surendranagar (Gujarat) and Gaya (Bihar) —ayurvedic medicines, dietary regimen and yoga classes are being used to treatnon-communicable diseases.
The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)has, for instance, developed anti-diabetic ayurvedic drug BGR 34, which hasproved a milestone in curing diabetic disease, an official said, adding it’s ascientifically developed drug produced by completing various medical tests andis proving very beneficial in controlling diabetes.
AYUSH minister SripadNaik had said that the BGR-34, jointly developed after standardisation andpre-clinical studies by the CSIR’s two labs — the Central Institute ofMedicinal and Aromatic Plants (CIMAP) and the National Botanical ResearchInstitute (NBRI), is meant to be used by patients of newly diagnosed diabetesonly as a measure of disease management.The drug is being sold by Delhi-based AIMILPharmaceuticals.