The COVID-19 pandemic has infected millions of people around the world and the resulting disease burden has challenged the already stressed healthcare systems globally. Amidst the increasing morbidity rate of SARS-CoV-2, the scientific community is vigorously researching possible remedies targeted against the virus. Natural herbs have a great potency to cure infectious diseases and are vastly unexplored. The present study aims to investigate Ayurvedic herbs in a unique polyherbal formulation, NOQ19, against the SARS-CoV-2 virus in an animal model. A total of 19 female Syrian hamsters were infected with the virus cell culture through intranasal route. 4 out of 19 animals were mock controls, 5 were infection controls, 4 were treated with remdesivir and acted as positive controls and remaining 6 were treated with NOQ19. The hamsters were observed to note body weight reduction and adverse events followed by sacrifice on day 4 after inoculation with the virus. The lung pathology and viral load was studied in each hamster. Results showed a significant reduction of 78.2% in the viral load for the NOQ19 arm, as compared to the infection control. Gross examination of the lung histology of the NOQ19 arm suggested an improvement in edema and congestion compared to the infection control. Also, no adverse events were noticed in NOQ19 hamster group. Therefore, the authors propose NOQ19 formulation as a potential option to be tested further for its efficacy and efficiency against COVID-19.
To study the in-vivo efficacy and safety of AYUSH polyherbal formulation among COVID-19 infected Syrian gold hamsters