Osmania University researcher's idea of herd immunity wows WHO

Hyderabad: The World Health Organisation (WHO) included a research paper on 'India's indigenous idea of herd immunity: the solution for Covid-19,' as part of the global literature on Covid-19 disease.

According to Dr Bheenavani, Research Scholar, of Department of Sociology, Osmania University, the research paper was first published in the Traditional Medicine Research Journal in China. Later, it has been included in the WHO's global literature on Covid disease.

Giving importance of his findings, Beenaveni said that it was based on folklore and traditional wisdom. When a shepherd purchases a few new sheep from an unknown seller or from a distant place, he keeps them away from his old flock of sheep for 15 days. It is a unique practice of herd quarantine. The new flock is permitted to mingle with the old flock only after the completion of the prescribed quarantine period. In case someone tries to violate the principle of herd quarantine, the herd council will impose a rigorous punishment, he added.

Also, whenever traits of virus-causing diseases, like cowpox, sheeppox, and goatpox, appear in cattle herds, shepherds anticipate its inescapability of viral infection and its inevitable outbreak and visualize that herd quarantine may not be a practical solution in the long run. Although shepherds are not exposed to the term "virus," they have a solid understanding of the very existence of a 'foreign specie' that damages the health of their herds.

To mitigate and militate the repulsive repercussions of the virus, they purposively evolve a typical method of treatment named, 'potthi kattu', known as herd immunity. This can be observed in all remote Indian villages until today, the research said.

In contrast to modern science, the original idea of herd immunity is not a natural process since inoculation or variolation is a must. This happens when the virulence of the virus is considerably condensed with the help of natural substances, like herbs and plants. Then, the attenuated virus will be inoculated into the body of a healthier animal, where the spurious virus enters through the medical intervention of shepherds which will eventually infect the flock one after the other.

By this means, the infection becomes mild, unlike the natural attack. The inherent antigens in animals will quickly respond to face the attack of the mild virus by producing awe-inspiring antibodies to develop immunity within a stipulated period.