Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) scientists claim that they have found herbal extracts which have the potential to treat the Novel Corona virus. Hisar based ICAR claimed, ” VTC-AntiC1 has the potential to treat COVID 19 and may be repurposed to treat the patients of Novel Corona virus”.
Herbal components used for making Ayurvedic medicine
“The new discovery can prove vital in COVID research as it has already given astounding results against many viruses including the novel coronavirus or COVID-19,” said BN Tripathi, Deputy Director General(animal science), ICAR
Speaking on the herbal plant’s extracts BN Tripathi said ” The institution is not at liberty to disclose the details at this juncture. I can only tell you the herbal components are currently being used in making Ayurvedic Medicines.
Formal note on findings
ICAR issued a formal note on Friday claiming on the findings of the ongoing research which may lead the scientists to found up components for the treatment of COVID 19 patients. To investigate the antiviral effect of certain herbal plants the scientists used chicken coronavirus called the infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) infection model in the study. As per the report, the chicken coronavirus was the first coronavirus identified in the year 1930. Which causes severe respiratory, nephrotic, and reproductive infection in poultry.
Encouraging results to treat Corona virus
According to the formal note issued by ICAR ” In a preliminary study it was found that A natural product (namely VTC-AntiC1) gave encouraging results to treat IBV Corona virus“. VTC-AntiC1 was able to completely protect chicken embryos upon lethal at a non-cytotoxic concentration. VTC-AntiC1 also showed vitro antiviral efficiency in the treatment of some other RNA( Newcastle disease virus) and DNA (buffalopox virus).
About Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)
Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) (Ministry of Agricultural and welfare) is an autonomous organization under the Department of Agricultural Research and Education. ICAR was established in the year 1929. ICAR has 101 institutes and 71 agricultural Universities across India. It is one of the largest agricultural institutes in the world. The council is an apex body for coordinating , guiding and managing research and education in agriculture including fisheries, horticulture, and animal science. The Institute has awarded with several awards for its outstanding contribution like Choudhary Devi Lal Outstanding all India coordinated Research project award 2019, Sardar Patel outstanding ICAR Institution Award 2019, Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay Krishi Vigyan Protsahan Puraskar (National Zonal) 2019, and Atal Bihari Vajpayee ICAR challenge Award 2019, etc.
