When a disease is difficult or costly to treat, the general practice is to treat with home remedies. This is true for COVID-19, a viral disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In the absence of therapeutics and with vaccines still not reaching Bangladesh, doctors are repurposing medicines and patients are self-medicating with home remedies for treatment of COVID-19. Surprisingly, these home remedies from various regions of Bangladesh are fairly consistent in their use of spices like ginger, clove, and cinnamon with black tea. We describe home remedies used by three COVID-19 patients in Gazipur district, Bangladesh and discuss the scientific validation of such home remedies.
, the latest pandemic to hit the world is caused by a coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and follows similar but not so widespread outbreaks by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) corona viruses. This latest outbreak, which started in Wuhan, China at the tail end of December 2019, has already caused (as of February 20, 2022) 424,434,253 infections and 5,903,704 deaths worldwide. In Bangladesh, the corresponding numbers are 1,933,291 infections and 28,965 deaths. No fully effective drugs have been discovered thus far for tackling this coronavirus, or so for that matter, any of the seven coronaviruses affecting human beings. A number of vaccines have been developed in the Western countries, Russia and China, and have gained approval for administration only very recently. That still leaves several major questions to be answered, namely how can developing countries get proper access to the vaccine (s) and store them and administer them in a correct manner taking into account that richer nations have bought up most of the vaccine stock available, whether new mutations of SARS-CoV-2 like delta and omicron variants may partly or fully invalidate the vaccine(s), and last but not the least, to vaccinate with two doses of the vaccine(s) along with 1-2 booster doses somewhere around 80% of the world population of nearly 8 billion, which scientists say is necessary to develop herd immunity. As a result people in countries like Bangladesh have resorted to their personal home remedial measures against COVID-19 and claims of success are heard quite often. We report here some home remedial measures used in Sirajganj district of Bangladesh and note that over the last two years COVID-19 has been in existence, these home remedies are beginning to coalesce into a distinct form unique for COVID-19 treatment. We also report that quite valid scientific support can be found behind these home remedies despite the fact that these remedies have been formulated and used by mostly rural people of the country.
Background: Home remedies were possibly used by human beings since their advent. Even in the modern era, home remedies may form the only recourse for people in rural and urban Bangladesh, who either cannot afford conventional treatment or live in remote areas from where transport to a modern hospital is practically not possible in time. As a result, from time immemorial, home remedies have formed a practical feature of the medical landscape in Bangladesh. The objective of this study was to gather information from households in Dhaka city regarding their use of home remedies. Methods and findings: Information was collected from households comprising of friends, relatives, and household workers through snowball sampling. Together they formed a wide spectrum of people of varying income but mostly on the low income side, that is earning less than Bangladesh Taka (BDT) 30,000 per month (1 US$ = BDT107.24). All collected information were given voluntarily by the households surveyed and duplicate information was discarded. The main question asked was as to what home remedies ('totka chikitsha' in Bengali) were used, if any. As far as possible, detailed descriptions were taken about the formulations, diseases, and dosages. Plants named by the people were common plants and easily identified from their Bengali names. Conclusions: Interestingly, most plants used as home remedies were either cultivated plants and easily obtained in the kitchen markets of Dhaka city or could be found by roadsides and outskirts of the city on fallow lands. Despite their uses by the common people, a scientific perusal of the literature suggests that they can form a real remedial recourse for people when no better treatment modes are affordable or nearby. Furthermore, the plants used can be found all throughout Bangladesh making them readily available items for treatment.
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