Union Education Minister Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank was admitted in Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences, also known as the AIIMS, after he developed post COVID complications on Tuesday.
Quoting sources, news agency PTI reported that Pokhriyal was admitted under Dr. Neeraj Nishchal at the AIIMS. Dr. Neeraj Nischal is an associate professor in the Department of Medicine. India’s education minister had tested positive for COVID-19 on 21 April this year during the second wave of the pandemic.
The news of Nishank being admitted to the AIIMS comes just days after he had facilitated the distribution of Ramdev’s Coronil kits to treat 2,500 COVID-19 patients in his parliamentary constituency of Haridwar in Uttarakhand.
“Coronil has given relief to the people so I urged Baba Ramdev to distribute it to Covid victims in Haridwar who are kept in home quarantine so that they can recover as soon as possible. This medicine will be provided free-of-cost to all 2,500 families,” the minister was quoted as saying last month.
Ramdev has had to face considerable criticism for claiming that Patanjali’s Coronil was suited to cure coronavirus. Ramdev’s close friend and Patanjali’s Managing Director Balkrishna had tweeted throwing an open challenge to the Indian Medical Association for questioning the efficacy of Coronil. “Open invitation to Indian Medical Association officials for a discussion on the science behind Coronil, with the research team at PRI. Let us discuss in front of the nation or IMA apologize for the baseless non-scientific allegations. We at Patanjali are pro-science but anti-conspiracy!” Balkrishna had tweeted.
Since then, the war of words between the IMA and Ramdev has only intensified with doctors across India staging protests against the controversial yoga guru on 1 June (today).