This comes in the wake of many people, especially homeopaths, spreading false rumours about the use of doxycycline used to treat rat fever.

The state of Kerala has been facing one issue after the other over the past few months. It started with the Nipah Virus that hit the state in the month of May followed by the devastating rains and floods in the month of August and just when the state was on the road to recovery, rat fever has emerged as another threat.

Even as medical teams and doctors across the state have been working overtime to control the spread of the disease, there were people on the other side who were trying to spread misinformation and create confusion among the people. They spread false rumours about the usage of Doxycycline, a medicine prescribed the Indian Medical Association (IMA) to arrest the rampant outbreak of rat fever.

Most of the people spreading false information like these were found to be those practicing alternative medicine like homeopathy. The IMA Kerala State Secretary, Dr Sulphi Noohu on September 8 wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking him to initiate a policy to restrict the practice of homeopathy.

“Unfortunately, in Kerala, a group of homeopathic practitioners are creating confusions by spreading fake information against Doxycycline and advocating alternative which has not been clinically proven. This is a very dangerous scenario as experimentations will lead to more fatality,” said Dr Sulphi Noohu in his letter.

He went on to say that many countries like Australia and England and also Germany where the practice of homeopathy originated, have come up with certain regulations regarding the use of homeopathic medicine and treatment. 

In his letter, he went on to urge the PM to take “stringent measures as the homeopathic prescriptions are not based on proven scientific research and clinical validations.” The doctor made a couple of recommendations in his letter to the PM. The first recommendation was to “execute restriction on homeopathy and gradually lead to the complete phase out of homeopathy practice in India.”

Secondly, he said that “the current homeopathy practitioners should be encouraged and inducted into modern medicine. They should be facilitated with a hassle-free upgrade program to secure MBBS.” Dr Sulhi said that a dedicated team at IMA is working day and night to prevent more deaths related to rat fever, and added he was confident that within a few days, the menace will be fully under control and that the death rate will come down to zero. 

This story was originally published on The News Minute and is reprinted here with permission. It can be viewed on https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/rat-fever-ima-kerala-secy-writes-pm-modi-policy-restricting-homeopathy-88080