By Prashant K. Nanda, IANS,
New Delhi : It looks like a geometry box but contains medicine for nine diseases that are common during a journey. The health ministry is now rolling out a unique homeopathy kit for travellers that will soon be made available in airports and railway stations across the country.
“This is a unique way to relieve sickness during travel without swallowing bitter pills. You can take it on your flight handbag or during your train journey,” said Chaturbhuja Nayak, director, Central Council for Research in Homeopathy (CCRH).
“We have put 15 medicines including an ointment, all homeopathy products, inside the kit and they are helpful in handling nine different diseases from fever, headache to colic and vomiting,” Nayak told IANS.
Diarrhoea, constipation, indigestion, cough, common cold and minor injuries are other problems that can be effectively handled through the medicines in the kit.
He said they have started supplying these kits free of cost in health fairs, conventions and homeopathy awareness camps across the country.
“Negotiations are on to introduce them through special counters in airports, railway stations and even inter-state bus terminals.
“Here, the first aid kits may not be available for free. We will sell them on a no-loss and no-profit basis. The whole kit will cost around Rs.30. This is certainly not costly to manage your sickness,” said Nayak, himself a medical practitioner.
He said that in case the colour of the white globules change, the medicine should not be taken.
Homeopathy as a form of medicine is being used across the globe for over 200 years. Travellers, missionaries and military personnel from the West brought homeopathy to India as early as 1810.
Since independence, the Indian government has been promoting it as a traditional system of medicine and currently it gets patronage from the central health ministry.
Besides the medicines, the kit has cotton swabs and bandage clothes. A two-page literature almost works as a prescription in guiding the users on dosage, what medicine to take on what conditions depending on weather pattern, age and severity of the disease.
“As part of the health ministry, our initiative will bring double benefit – treat disease and popularise homeopathy,” said Nayak with a smile.