Ayurveda drug gets nod for clinical trials on patients

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Kochi:  4.5.2020

An ayurveda medicine, Zingivir-H tablet, used for treating respiratory infections, has got approval from the clinical trial registry of India (CTRI) for clinical trials on adults tested positive for Covid-19.

The drug developed by Kerala-based Pankajakasthuri herbal research foundation and effectively used for viral fevers, acute viral brochitis and other respiratory infections will now be tested as a potential medicine for Covid-19 in medical colleges in India.

“Our scientific validations have shown that this drug has strong anti-viral properties and is effective against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza virus. The RSV is an RNA virus and we expect that it will be effective against Covid-19, which is also an RNA virus,” said Dr J Hareendran Nair, Padma Shri awardee and formulator of the drug.

Dr Nair said that several medical colleges have approved the clinical trials through their ethical committees. “Some of them have already started trials and the first results are expected to be available by the second week of May,” he said.

He said that the in vitro experiments done at the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology has proven that there are no side-effects in the human cell.

Subsequently, the approval was received from the institutional ethic committee (IEC), based on which CTRI, which comes under the Indian council for medical research (ICMR), gave approval.