A Kozhikode-based Ayurveda cooperative society has teamed up with Malabar Regional Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union Limited, or Malabar Milma, to produce veterinary medicines, which, according to them, also reduces the antibiotic content in milk.
Functionaries of the Kerala Ayurvedic Cooperative Society claim that these medicines are effective in treating eight diseases such as bovine mastitis, indigestion, diarrhoea, acidity, bloating stomach, and hoof crack. They can also be used to increase milk production.
M.M. Sanal Kumar of the society said that using Ayurvedic medicines to treat cattle would help reduce dependence on antibiotics. This would go a long way in countering anti-microbial resistance, the tendency of microbes such as bacteria and viruses developing resistance to antibiotics, which is an emerging public health concern. The antibiotic content in milk could be brought down to a large extent as well.
Dr. Sanal claimed that Ayurvedic medicines would help reduce treatment cost of the various diseases affecting cattle. Milking of cattle can be continued during the treatment period too. Scientists from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology, veterinary doctors, and Ayurvedic doctors are involved in the project to produce the drugs. The society functionaries point out that such collaborations are a practical example of the ‘One Health’ concept mooted by the World Health Organisation.
Milma is learnt to have approached the society as it does not have the required licence to produce the drugs. The milk union had earlier given some medicines to dairy farmers, which can be used without consulting veterinarians, on an experimental basis to treat diseases found in cattle. As the experiment became a success, it was reportedly decided to produce the drugs. The society was provided the formula for the medicines later. This project gained attention after Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned about it in his weekly radio broadcast ‘Mann Ki Baat’.
