A prospective observational study jointly conducted by the Government Siddha Medical College here and the Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital in asymptomatic and mild symptomatic COVID-19 patients has shown that ‘kabsurakudineer’and ‘athimathuram’ tablet combination is effective in neutralising the viral infection.
Though all the 45 patients, who had consented to be samples of the study, had been admitted in the Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital for the viral infection, no allopathic medication was administered to them even as they were taking ‘kabasurakudineer’ and ‘athimathuram’ tablet. The native medicines proved to be very effective against COVID-19 as most of these patients tested negative for the disease on the sixth day itself while the remaining got cured on the tenth day.
With the consent of the patients and the cooperation of TVMCH authorities, the study was conducted on 45 patients – 26 male with average age of 34.12 years and 19 female with the average age of 37.41 years - who were admitted in the COVID-19 treatment ward. Of this, 35 patients – 20 male and 15 female – were asymptomatic. All the patients were administered with 60 ml of ‘kabasurakudineer’ and ‘athimathuram’ tablets for five days. Evaluation of RT – PCR on the sixth day showed 32 patients (71.10%) tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 viral infection and on the tenth day the remaining 13 patients too tested positive for the respiratory disease, the study shows.
Patients having history of diabetes, heart diseases, cancer, multi-organ failure syndrome and pregnant women were excluded from this study.
The Siddha practitioners say that modern medicines focus on killing the virus but not on increasing the host’s immunity. In the case of Siddha medicine, herbs like ‘amukkara’, ‘nilavembu’ are immune-modulator and have the capacity to inhibit the virus by enhancing and restoring immunity of humans. So, the strength of Siddha medicine was used to arrive upon a potent formulation that was both anti-viral and immuno-modulatory with minimum side effects on patients, who were immune-compromised as well as those who have co-morbid conditions.
“The ‘kabasurakudineer’ increases the immunity and acts as an immune-modulator as this virus adversely affects the immune response. The formulations chosen are aimed at increasing immunity and also to expel out the ‘kabam’ (sputum) and reinstate respiratory health. These drugs on post-digestive transformation get converted to hot potency, which increases and normalizes ‘piththam’ and expels excessive ‘kabam’ out of lungs, which is the rationale behind selecting these formulations,” says Dr. Subash Chandran, one of the investigators and a faculty of Government Siddha Medical College, Palayamkottai.
The investigating team comprised Dr. Subhash Chandran, Dr. Justus Antony and Dr. Victoria, all from Government Siddha Medical College, Palayamkottai, and Dr. Ravichandran, Dean, TVMCH, and Dr. Rathi Devi, Dr. Ezhil Ramya and Dr. Shantaraman, all from TVMCH.
“The cost of the drug limits the utility of Remdesivir. It cannot be used as community prophylaxis or a community drug intervention for treating asymptomatic and mild symptomatic infections. Kabasura kudineer chooranam is widely used in Siddha for treatment of fevers and also as a prophylactic at the time of viral epidemics,” says Dr. Subhash Chandran.
