Traditional medicines as effective against COVID-19 as chemical compounds in anti-COVID drugs, finds study

While vaccines are offering protection against COVID-19 and several drugs are being used for COVID-19 treatment, a study shows that immune boosting traditional medicines are effective as they have chemical compounds that are potential treatments against COVID-19. 

A study based on network pharmacology approach to understand activating mechanism of the immune system by a team of researchers and experts from Meenakshi Academy of Higher Education and Research, Siddha Central Research Institute Chennai, School of BioSciences & Technology, VIT Vellore and Department of Biotechnology, Sri Ramachandra Faculty of Biomedical sciences and Technology, Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research was done to understand the immune-boosting mechanism by the Kabasura kudineer, Nilavembu kudineer, and JACOM in treating COVID-19. 

The Ministry of AYUSH approved Kabasura kudineer and Nilavembu kudineer as part of the Covid-19 treatment. However, the mechanism of these formulations is not well known. "The study was done to understand the immune-boosting mechanism by the Kabasura kudineer, Nilavembu kudineer, and JACOM in treating COVID-19. The plants and phytochemical chemical compounds in the Kabasura kudineer, Nilavembu kudineer, and JACOM were obtained and the common genes for the COVID-19 infection and the drug targets were identified," said Dr M S Shree Devi, one of the authors of the study.

She added that 339 human genes were found to be involved in COVID-19 and the biological process, molecular functions, cellular functions, pathways involved in treating Covid-19 against the target proteins were analysed and other studies were performed to identify the most potential targets and significant phytochemical compounds to treat the COVID-19 that are present in these traditional medicines. 

These plants were found to have phytochemical compounds that have drug-likeness properties and based on their efficacy in treating infectious disease with other RNA viruses or in reducing cytokine storms and other illnesses caused by viruses are identical to SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2. Several compounds that play a crucial role in regular immune response function were found and these helped to improve the immune system by preventing or reducing inflammation.