By Doris Obinna
The Federal Government has been tasked to look inwards toward developing effective indigenous solutions to conquer diseases in the country. Experts at the evaluation presentation of ABUAD Herbal Virucidine Liquid disclosed that herbal preparations are commonly used in homes; therefore Nigerians need to begin to develop in-house therapy.
The ABUAD Herbal Virucidine Liquid for COVID-19 management was presented by Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD) in collaboration with NIMR.
The Director General, Nigeria Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), Prof Babatunde Salako, said that the ABUAD Virucidine Liquid has the potential to be licensed as treatment for COVID-19.
According to Salako, various therapeutic and non therapeutic measures deployed to curtail the pandemic slowed the pace of the disease but not eliminated COVID-19 as a disease of global public health importance.
“We want to make people aware of the success that we have made, especially as the drug that we are looking at is home grown. So it is like the Nigerian homegrown solution for a disease that has ravaged the world. Even though we are at preliminary stage, our findings show that this is very promising and what we need to do is to move on to the next stage which is to conduct the same study in larger number of people, it is after that the regulatory agency will be confident to register it as a treatment for COVID-19.
“For now we see it as a promising drug. What we can say today is that we have herbal therapy that is looking promising and requires further tests. The extract was sent to us for toxicity evaluation for its safety, efficacy and tolerability. The results from the studies lead us to recommend a full clinical trial of ABUAD Virucidine Liquid and its possible addition as a herbal management to COVID-19 treatment in Nigeria pending the results of the full clinical trials.”
On his part, Professor, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, ABUAD, Prof Idowu Omotuyi, said: “We don’t have to wait when we have health challenges for the whites to solve our problems while we play the role of an onlooker. We must be active participants not just in people in whose body the drug would be trial but in people who also put their brains or made their brains available to carry out research.
“While the world is looking for a drug that could help with COVID-19, ABUAD, which is one of the major Universities in Nigeria, has developed something for COVID-19. And so it was presented to a third party, which is NIMR to test, validate and share the findings with us. So everything here today is a manifestation of the efficacy of what we have developed in ABUAD.
“Nigerians should note that COVID-19 is not going anywhere, so ABUAD Virucidine is one of the therapeutic options for COVID-19. The way Virucidine works is to block SARS-Cov-2 from assessing the tube which is your body.”
While calling on the federal government to partner with ABUAD in the development of indigenous solution, he said: “Virucidine is just a tip of what can come out of ABUAD; this is telling the world of the possibilities and the capacities available at ABUAD.”
In a presentation of the Proof-of-Concept clinical trial of the ABUAD herbal liquid, the Deputy Director of Research, NIMR, Dr Agatha David, said out of 72 participants screened for the trials, 44 enrolled, and 43 (97.7 percent) of the enrolled participants completed the study.
“The main symptoms at enrolment were cough (65.0 per cent), fever (55.8 per cent), and sore throat (46.5 percent). A higher proportion of participants in the Virucidine arm were SARS-CoV-2 negative by day 3 (61.5 per cent and by Day 7 92.3 per cent were negative.)
“All participants were SARS-CoV-2 negative by Day 14. A significantly higher proportion of participants on Virucidine were also symptom free by Day 7 compared to the control group (88.5 per cent versus 52.9 per cent).
“The findings also revealed that the ABUAD Virucidine Liquid was well tolerated and there were no serious adverse events, clinical deterioration or death through the 28 days of follow-up.”
