A folk remedy from an herb known as “dung of the devil” because of its rank smell could lead scientists to new drugs for swine flu, a Taiwanese study said.
Extracts from the plant’s roots, bought from a Chinese herb shop in Taipei, were more potent against the (A)H1N1 virus in lab tests than was the prescription anti-viral medicine amantadine, a Kaohsiung Medical University research team wrote in a study scheduled for publication on Sept. 25 in the ACS Journal of Natural Products.
The pungent plant, Ferula assafoetida, is a flu folk remedy of long standing and was used during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, the scientists wrote. Its individual compounds had never been studied systematically, they said. Among other uses, the herb has also been employed in folk medicine for cancer, HIV and rheumatism.
The study shows compounds from the plant “may serve as promising lead components for new drug development against influenza A(H1N1) viral infection,” the scientists wrote.
Researchers treated some virus-infected cells with compounds extracted from the devil dung plant and others with amantadine, a generic drug. Most of the compounds were better at killing the virus than the existing medicine, the researchers wrote. Current strains of H1N1 are resistant to amantadine, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote in interim recommendations on Tuesday.
Such lab tests are not proof that a medicine works, but could be precursors to trials of a new compound in animals and eventually humans.
H1N1 influenza has become the world’s fastest-moving flu epidemic, with cases in 177 countries since it was identified in April. US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Lab tests confirmed H1N1 in at least 2,837 deaths and more than 254,206 infections as of Aug. 30, though most infected patients are not tested, the WHO said.
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