Ashwagandha can help fight Covid-19, claims study

New Delhi: Ayurvedic herb Ashwagandha can be an effective therapeutic and preventive drug against the COVID-19 infection, a collaborative research by IIT-Delhi and Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology has found.

The natural compounds from Ashwagandha and Propolis have the potential to be an effective novel coronavirus preventive drug, according to the research team.

"The researchers targeted the main SARS-CoV-2's enzyme for splitting proteins, known as the main protease (Mpro), that plays a key role in mediating viral replication.

This is an attractive drug target for this virus, and as humans don't naturally have this enzyme, compounds that target Mpro are likely to have low toxicity," said D Sundar, head of the Delhi Indian Institute of Technology's Biotechnology department.

"The findings may not only connect to save time and cost required for screening for anti-COVID-19 drugs, but may also offer some preventive and therapeutic value for the management of fatal COVID-19 pandemic, and hence, warrant prioritized validation in the laboratory and clinical tests," he said.

The drug's development may take some time, and in the current scenario, these natural resources -- Ashwagandha and Propolis -- can offer some preventive or even therapeutic value, according to Sundar.

He said that "although these are easily available and affordable, one has to be cautious about the content of bioactive ingredients.

CAPE, while is a major component of propolis, its amount and stability are critical factors that could be managed by generating its complex with cyclodextrins".