Around 75% of doctors at the Government Homoeopathic Medical College Hospital in Thiruvananthapuram have taken the COVID-19 vaccine despite a section of their fraternity in the State openly questioning the need to make the jab mandatory.
According to the reply given to a query under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 27 of the 39 teachers belonging to the clinical and non-clinical sections at the medical college in the State capital have been vaccinated. Fourteen teachers had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. These teachers have also taken Arsenicum Album 30 C tablets as a precautionary measure, the reply added.
The RTI query was filed by the Campaign Against Pseudo Science Using Law and Ethics (CAPSULE), a wing of the Kerala Sasthra Sahitya Parishad. Their plea to get similar details from the homoeopathic medical college hospital in Kozhikode has been forwarded to the State Public Information officer there.
The International Forum for Promoting Homoeopathy had filed a complaint with the Kerala State Human Rights Commission against a circular by the State Election Commission making vaccination mandatory for officials on poll duty in 2021. The association had also questioned the effectiveness of the vaccine in ensuring immunity against the infection. Its members had pointed out that not even the manufacturers of the vaccine were sure about its efficacy. To prove their point in social media debates, the homoeopathic doctors had also cited a study by the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology that said the Covishield vaccine cannot prevent infection.
Meanwhile, CAPSULE functionaries said in a statement that from the RTI reply it had turned out that 38.67% of doctors at the Thiruvananthapuram college had been infected. That meant the Arsenicum Album immune booster was found to have no effect on them. “Over 65 lakh people have so far officially tested positive for the virus in the State, which is 18.66% of the total population. Does that mean the average percentage of people who were infected even after taking the homoeopathy immune booster is higher than the State average of the infected people who may not have taken the immune boosters,” they wondered.
