While waiting for the Solidarity Trails on Vaccines (STV) to start in the country, Science and Technology Secretary Fortunato de la Peña said among the remedies to help alleviate the hardships encountered by Covid patients is the use of virgin coconut oil or VCO as therapeutic treatment.

“With respect to other solutions to the Covid-19 pandemic, I’m happy to report about the use of VCO, of course, we are ready for that, and the good news is, with our Santa Rosa (Laguna) trials involving the recovery period of patients, if VCO is used on the average, recovery will take some days earlier,” he said during an interview over the Daily Tribune’s “Straight Talk.”

Initially, he said the Department of Science and Technology (DoST) has focused its VCO clinical trials at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH), where the original plan was to concentrate on severe and moderate cases.

“But then, we have to consider certain procedures, like for instance, we can’t include in the trials those who are hypertensive or have high cholesterol, the DoST chief said.

“I think the plan now is to include those patients if they will agree of course,” he added.

“We are also planning to have another clinical trial in Valenzuela City. We already have agreements with the different parties involved, including the local government of Valenzuela,” De la Peña said.

He said that in the clinical trials, the DoST will be represented by its Food and Nutritionist Research Institute, in coordination with its National Capital Region office. We also have the Philippine Coconut Authority, and of course, the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development.

“Now, we also have ongoing trials on other natural materials, like lagundi. Actually, this is a cough remedy which was approved by the FDA a long time ago, and that is good for cough, sore throat and fever,” he said.

“But before going to the trials, we have to find out if, first, if it can relieve the coughing of Covid-19 patients. It will, of course, be more comfortable if symptoms will disappear. Secondly, the objective is also to find whether the use of lagundi can prevent the worsening of symptoms, for example from mild to moderate to severe. The First Phase of the trial was already completed, involving 75 percent of patients,” he said.

So far, there are no significant side effects that were observed. There were, however, few but these are minor cases. So, we are now in the Second Phase, involving 200 volunteers.

In the case of tawa-tawa, it was only approved as a supplement, because of the observations that it can reduce the viral load in patients, he added.

“For example, from the dengue experiment, this is actually a health supplement which can be taken by dengue patients,” he explained.

“Now, it is being tried for Covid-19 and so we hope this will show some promising results because it is very important that we have our own therapeutic drugs coming from the Philippines and particularly from natural products. It is much better to get something out of natural products from the country,” De la Peña said.

Source: https://tribune.net.ph/index.php/2021/01/28/dost-taps-herbal-meds-vs-virus/