IANS File Photo
NEW DELHI, JULY 17 (IANS): Industry body Assocham on Friday announced the launch of a national health and wellness awareness programme "Illness to Wellness" to promote healthy living and preventive health through holistic measures.
Supported by the hygiene brand 'Savlon', the programme started with a webinar on the topic "Illness to Wellness - The Yoga Way" which was attended by health and yoga experts and industry leaders to deliberate on how Yoga could be the answer for mitigating threats caused by viruses and other ailments.
Ishwar V. Basavaraddi, Director, Morarji Desai National Institute of Yoga, Ministry of Ayush, said: "We have deployed 30 instructors in Covid centres run by the Delhi government, who would teach patients yoga for three hours in the morning. Additionally, we have undertaken yoga lessons for COVID-19 patients in the neighbouring 11 districts." He noted that the institute has received 500 applications from the Department of Science & Technology to understand the beneficial aspects of yoga especially for Covid patients and so are working on three projects with renowned yoga institutes to arrive at findings.
"The programme is being expanded to cover people who have come in contact with COVID patients like family members, police personnel, medical professionals etc," Basavaraddi.
Rajiv Chandran, Director, UN Information Centre stated that the United Nations has embraced Yoga and 175 out of 193 countries unanimously agreed to celebrate Yoga as an annual International Day.
"The COVID-19 pandemic has completely transformed the concept of wellness. Now, wellness is not merely an individual's concern rather a community strategy and is being viewed in a very broader perspective of people's relationship with the planet and the society," he said.
Sharing his views, Anil Rajput, Chairman, Assocham CSR Council said that the pandemic has taught the human race the hard lesson that medical science may not have ready-made answers to emerging health crises.
"Illness to Wellness has been timely conceived to bring the spotlight back on aspects we perhaps know at the back of our mind, but many are not able to practice in the rush of a busy life, such as the importance of healthy diet, exercise, hygienic habits, timely preventive practices among others," he said.
