Each year 10th of April is celebrated as World Homeopathy Day to honour the birth anniversary of father of Homeopathy Dr Samuel Hahnemann. The day is celebrated each year to pay tribute to him and his contributions to the world of medicine. The day aims to spread awareness about Homeopathy and to recognize and work upon the challenges faced in the advancement and development of Homeopathy so that it can be readily available to the common masses. The theme for World Homeopathy Day-2021 is Roadmap for Integrated Medicine. 


Born in 1755, Dr Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann was a great visionary, scientist, pharmacist, physician, epidemiologist, hygienist, linguist and much more. It is also interesting to note that Dr Samuel Hahnemann is the only non-political and non-religious person in the world whose birthday is celebrated throughout the educated world and in all civilized languages.


It is evident that Homeopathy is one of the most popular alternative disciplines of medicine in India and second most widely used system of medicine in the world.


Since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic back in March 2020, the virus has claimed more than 25 lakh lives globally with upwards of 11.3 crore cases being confirmed by laboratory tests as of March 2021. The current coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic has impacted almost every corner of life and has spread in every country and every continent except Antarctica. It is the biggest global health crisis the world has faced since World War II and today when the world is witnessing the second wave of Covid19, it has become even more important to celebrate this day and focus on the measures to be taken by an integrated approach. It is therefore the need of the hour to spread awareness about the role of Homeopathy and its contribution in healthcare.


In the beginning of 2021, our country saw emergency approval of two vaccines and the launch of the biggest mass vaccination drive ever. Vaccines contain weakened or inactive parts of a particular organism (antigen) that triggers an immune response within the body. It is weakened substance which can infect a healthy individual when given/infected in active form. Does it not sound like the concept of Homeopathy?


Since its very beginning, in Homeopathy small highly diluted doses of substances that can cause illness in a healthy human being are used to trigger the healing responses in a patient suffering from a similar illness. The system of Homeopathy has been based upon the principle of "like cures like"; which simply means that a disease can be cured by a substance that can induce similar symptoms in a healthy human being. 


So, this is high time that advancements in the science and technology should be well adopted and implemented accordingly to 'modernize' the system and thus make it more reliable and scientifically sound. It is required to focus on the quality of education in the field and to have much more involvement of clinical exposure to facilitate high quality, evidence-based system of treatment. This is the only way we can ensure effective and efficient inclusion of Homeopathy in integrative healthcare. I suppose then, and only then, it will be a real tribute to Hahnemann.