A fortnight ago, the union minister in charge of the National Mission for Clean Ganga approached the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) to conduct research on the use of Ganga river water (Ganga Jal) as a cure to the coronavirus ( COVID-19 ) virus infection. The ICMR pointed out that the data available on this work are not strong enough to start any clinical trials, and politely declined — touché.
ICMR issues guidance for appropriate recording of COVID-19 deaths to create robust data
River Ganga is regarded by millions of people as the holiest and most sacred among all the rivers of the world. Starting from the Gangotri glacier at Gaumukh in the Himalayas (3.9 km or 13,000 feet above sea level), it gathers water from several streams on the way to become River Ganga at Devaprayag near Haridwar in the Uttarakhand state. It flows all the way to the Bay of Bengal 2,525 km, with river basins across all the northern Indian flatlands such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. People (mostly Hindu, but some others too) all across its course worship it, bathe in it, take its water home for pooja and related purposes (I saw it being sold abroad as well, for example, in Indian shops in California). Such is the belief and reverence for Ganga Mata.
The Sacred and the profane
Unfortunately, in the Haridwar region itself, pollution of its water has been going on for centuries — largely through human waste disposal and some commercial pollution as well. R. Bhutania and colleagues have published a paper titled: “Assessment of Ganga River Ecosystem at Haridwar, Uttarakhand, India, with reference to Water Quality Index” in the journal Applied Water Science, 6, 107-118 (2016), <link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s13201-014-0206-6.pdf>, which is not at all a happy reading. And the most recent contamination study of river Ganga water has appeared in the December 23, 2019 issue of the New York Times <nytimes.com/2019/12/23/health/ganges-drug-resistant-bacteria.html>. This study summarises the ongoing analysis (by a group of researchers at the IIT Delhi) of the pollution, and the presence of dangerous bacteria in the water, which are resistant to the currently used antibiotic drugs. In other words, right where it starts to flow into the country, Ganga Jal is harmful for human and animal health. As it flows downstream, industrial wastes from factories are further dumped, making its water quality and safety even worse. Indeed, a recent report from the holy city of Varanasi says that the current lockdown period has helped the river’s water quality improve by 40-50% ( India Today, April 6, 2020).
Health Ministry says COVID-19 recovery rate has crossed 30%
How have we allowed this profanity? Surely, a large number of humans who use Ganga water are believers; even many heads of the various industry groups still hold Ganga as sacred, and even offer pooja using its water from time to time, and yet go ahead and pollute it. [It is important to note here that the word ‘profane’ is not necessarily a denial of belief, but refers to mundane individual concerns, and not ‘good versus evil’, or ‘God versus Satan’]. It is a ‘what is in there for me’ attitude, which is ethically (perhaps even morally) wrong. Given this dichotomy, Ganga Mata does not appear to have a safe and clean future.
Learn from dolphins, gharials
Getting back to science, given this abundance of poisonous germs (and harmful chemical wastes), one wonders how the 140 fish species, 90 amphibians, reptiles, birds, and the famous Ganges river dolphins and the gharials (fish eating crocodiles) cope with the conditions in the water, particularly, since it is also polluted now by COVID-19 . Do they have special immunity, and do they generate antibodies to fight against such pathogens? This is an issue that needs to be studied with care and adapted for human defence against coronaviruses.
Some interesting insights have come about from some recent immunity studies displayed by unusual animals such as llamas, camels and sharks. Mitch Leslie writes in the May 1, 2020 issue of Science: “Biologists invent a new way to fight viruses with llama blood and molecular superglue”. Miniature antibodies are seen to be pumped out by the immune cells of llamas, camels and sharks, which are about half the size of standard antibodies. The main message here is that these animals generate mini-antibodies, which can be easily synthesised in biology labs and used as weapons to win over viral infection. A detailed paper on how this can be done has just been published in the journal Cell (see: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2020.04.031 ). More relevant to the dolphins is a paper by C. Centellege and coworkers,: “Insights into dolphins’ immunology: Immuno-phenotypic study on Mediterranean and Atlantic stranded cetaceans”; < https://doi.org/10.3389/2019.00888> . The Mediterranean Sea is highly polluted while the waters in Canary Islands are purer.
I believe we can take a lesson from these studies, research on the Ganges river dolphins and the ghariyals, identify their mini-antibodies, synthesise them in the lab, and adapt them for human use against COVID-19 and other such coronaviruses. The DBT laboratory, National Institute of Animal Biotechnology (NIAB) at Hyderabad might be a possible centre to initiate this.
Where the twain do meet
In stark contrast to the above minister, is a request from the minister in charge of AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga and naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy) to conduct a randomised controlled clinical trial to assess the efficacy of Ashwagandha, Yashtimadhu, giloy and a polyherbal formulation (called Ayush 64), as prophylactic interventions against COVID-19. This should be conducted since there is sufficient evidence that molecules in traditional herbs and plants have therapeutic properties, and their active molecules discovered, synthesised and used by drug companies. And the polymath M S Valiathan has spent the last two decades, collaborating with Ayurvedic practitioners, biochemists, cell biologists, geneticists and nanotechnologists to evaluate the effects of traditional formulations using today’s scientific methods.(Read, for example, his medal lecture:”Ayurvedic Biology: The First Decade” published in Proceedings of the Indian National Science Academy 82, No.1, March 2016. pp. 13-19, where he cites many experiments on Ayurveda using today’s science, and their confirmatory results; available free on the web). One such example is: “ In vivo effects of traditional Ayurvedic formulations in Drosophila melanogaster model relate with therapeutic applications”, by V. Dwivedi et al., PLoS One , 2012; 7(5):23711<doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0037113>. Here is how tradition and today’s science meet and merge.
AYUSH can fight COVID-19, Ganga Jal can only carry it.
dbala@lvpei.org
