Chernobyl survivors respond to Ayurveda, Russia to recognise science

Chernobyl survivors respond to Ayurveda, Russia to recognise science
SANCHITA SHARMA

NEW DELHI, JAN 16: With 90 Chernobyl survivors and their children responding well to ayurvedic treatment, the Russian Government is in the process of recognizing Ayurveda as a medical science. The survivors were treated for a variety of radiation-related diseases like pulmonary disorders, osteoporosis, skin problems, osteoarthritis and psychosomatic disorders.

``Ayurveda is the best system of medicine for treating chronic conditions like bronchial asthma and diabetes and now many Russians are realising it,'' said Svetlana A. Mayskaya, president of the Medical Centre NAAMI-AYU, a Moscow-based nodal health agency. The radiation survivors, 50 men and 40 women, were treated at the Moscow centre by four Indian vaids from the Arya Vaidyashala in Kottakal, Kerala.

The positive response has prompted the centre to ask India -- specifically, the Department of the Indian Systems of Medicine and Homeopathy (ISM&H) in the Ministry of Health -- for more vaids, teachers of Ayurveda and textbooks. ``Most of these people came to us after they had tried conventional methods of treatment and found them useless,'' said Mayskaya, who did her MD in Virology before turning her attention to Ayurveda, which she calls an ``honest science'' because it considers patients cured only when there are no side-effects.

In Russia, Ayurveda has also been used to successfully treat aspermia -- where the man's sperm count is zero -- in a Russian who went on to have a child after treatment. ``He cabled to congratulate us on the birth of his first child,'' recalled Mayskaya gleefully.

While the Medical Centre NAAMI-AYU does not advertise, it does get some help from the Indian Embassy in Moscow, which organised a series of seminars on Ayurveda last year. ``Russians are slowly realising that Ayurveda is a science and not a form of vegetarianism, faith healing or mantra healing,'' she said. Her centre will now be collaborating with the Department of ISM&H on the treatment of bronchial asthma and peptic ulcers.

A scientific record of the treatment and the response of the patients were published in scientific journals and papers were presented at various medical conferences. ``Panchkarma is a recognised ayurvedic therapy for the treatment of muskulo-skeletal and nerve-related disorders but to have it recognized in a country which is highly dependent on the conventional scientific approach to medicine is good news for India,'' said Shailaja Chandra, Secretary, ISM&H.

Many countries are showing interest in the ancient Indian system of medicine, with institutes from seven countries -- Japan, Australia, Netherlands, Argentina, Italy, US and Argentine -- signing MOUs on academic and technical collaboration with the Gujarat Ayurved University last month.