The current COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) epidemic has proved challenging due to its high impact on physical and mental health. According to Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy, in an epidemic the most severe symptoms of the clinical condition presented by the population in question should be the basis for selecting the medication that is as similar as possible to them, and which should be administered to individuals who have been exposed to the disease but have not yet developed it. This medicine is called the genus epidemicus. This study aims to demonstrate the reasoning used to propose the homeopathic medicine Antimonium tartaricum (Ant-t) as a genus epidemicus in the COVID-19 epidemic. It was decided to develop the reasoning based on the respiratory symptoms described in the epidemiological bulletins presented by the Health Surveillance Secretariat of the Ministry of Health of Brazil, as these symptoms are the most serious of the disease. After repertorization, it was confirmed in the Materia Medica that Ant-t has a high degree of similarity with these respiratory symptoms, including the most serious situations, of COVID-19. Homeopathic Ant-t is thus a possible prophylactic genus epidemicus in the COVID-19 epidemic; further studies are needed to test this conclusion.

Background The manifestations of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) can result in several prognoses and lead patients to look for appropriate complementary or alternative treatment options according to their personal situation and available health care. Patients with mild symptoms or those who have not yet reached the maximum severity of their condition are those who seek outpatient care, where homeopathic treatment might be considered, given the well documented history of this medical system in several epidemics in the past. Objective The aim of this study was to compare the homeopathic treatment used for symptomatic cases of COVID-19 in March and April 2020 with cases treated in March and April 2021. Method This is a retrospective observational study based on the analysis of the medical records of symptomatic COVID-19 patients treated on an outpatient basis with homeopathy at the Hahnemanniano George Galvão Institute in São Paulo, Brazil. We analyzed 54 cases, divided into two samples (27 cases in each year), similar in relation to age, gender and origin of the patients. Results The development was distinct in the 2 years, with improvement of symptoms after 3 days of the first homeopathic prescription in 2020 whilst in 2021 the improvement occurred from the sixth day onward. The most frequently prescribed homeopathic medicine also differed in the two samples (Antimonium tartaricum in 2020; Arsenicum album in 2021), which indicates the different disease characteristics at these two moments of the epidemic. Conclusion In 2020, the symptomatology of the cases was mainly acute and the main medicine was Antimonium tartaricum. By comparison, in 2021 a greater interference from individuals' previous chronic miasmatic disease may explain the change in the main medicines used that year, with Arsenicum album being the most prescribed in the cases studied.

COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) may present variable symptoms among infected individuals, with chronic disease patients appearing as the group most susceptible to present severe pulmonary infection, while having a higher risk of developing complications from the disease. This study demonstrates the relationship between the manifestation of COVID-19 and the presence of chronic miasmatic disease, based on the works of Samuel Hahnemann. The reaction of the individual who previously presented chronic miasmatic disease, when in contact with the stimulus of the epidemic disease, depends on the type of response that the organism was generating in the face of the pre-existing situation: if it is an intense reaction and greater than that which the stimulus of COVID-19 can generate, this individual will not develop the severe form of the epidemic disease; if the reaction is less than that generated by COVID-19, more intense symptoms may appear. Understanding that the presence of a chronic miasmatic disease interferes with the manifestation of COVID-19, which may have repercussions on other organs, can change how one must act on the treatment, as this can alter the individual's health status.