The Kerala based Ayurveda Hospital Management Association (AHMA) has inked a pact with Ayurveda Russia-India Association (ARIA), Moscow for exchange of traditional knowledge of Ayurveda treatment and a joint effort to propagate the Indian system in Russia with academic and research information.

ARIA is an organisation of ayurvedic doctors of Russia and India working in that country. Physicians of modern medical sciences in Russia who are interested in the time-proven indigenous healing system of India are also members of the association. The two organisations have signed the MoU at Thiruvananthapuram last week.

The MoU will focus on topics related to treatment, joint research and university level courses for Ayurveda in Russia, said Dr Baby Krishnan, secretary of AHMA.

He said through this agreement the patients with chronic diseases in Russia will be treated in speciality ayurvedic hospitals in Kerala, and doctors working in India will be invited to that country as faculty members for knowledge exchange and as medical experts. The allopathic physicians of Russia are showing considerable interest in learning ayurvedic system of India and with their support, ARIA will try to propagate Ayurveda in that country, he said.

The president of ARIA, Dr Carelino Kasperino visited major ayurvedic hospitals in Kerala last week along with a delegation of Russian ayurvedic practitioners, and held discussion with AHMA leaders and eminent ayurvedic doctors. Followed by it, they signed the MoU with the hospital organisation for furtherance of their programmes.

As per the MoU, patients coming from Russia for specialized treatment in Ayurveda system will be admitted in selected hospitals under the supervision of specialty doctors. As a first step five specialty hospitals in Ayurveda have been selected for this India-Russia collaborative treatment. They are Kottakkal Arya Vaidyasala, Sreedhareeyam Ayurvedic Eye Hospital, Kootthattukulam, Punarnava Ayurveda Hospital, Ernakulam, Dhathri Ayurveda Hospital, Kayamkulam and Moulana Abdul Rasak Moulavi Hospital, Kozhikodu, said Dr Baby Krishnan.

He said the tie-up seems relevant when the Kerala government remains unwilling to co-locate the Ayurveda hospitals with the PHCs. The modern medical practitioners in Russia want to propagate the method of ayurvedic treatment of India in their country and bring the system into the university level as a medical course. For that ARIA has approached the Russian government with several academic and research proposals. A seminar on the importance of Ayurveda system was conducted in Moscow by the organisation recently.

When asked about the availability of ayurvedic drugs in Russia, Dr Baby said all the medicines will be exported to that country from well established hospital –cum-manufacturing companies in Kerala. Kottakkal and Nagarjuna are now exporting their products to Russia. All the medicines required for the treatments there will be sent from Kerala. He said besides a commercial purpose, this is a project of knowledge exchange.