Trivandrum based Pankajakasthuri Herbals India Private Limited (PKHIL) has announced promising interim clinical trial results for ZingiVir-H among patients suffering from COVID-19.

Developed by Dr. J. Hareendran Nair, Founder of Pankajakasthuri Herbal Research Foundation, ZingiVir-H is a herbo-mineral drug made of a blend of seven ingredients.

With the announcement, the company hopes to reiterate the tremendous potential of Ayurveda as a cost-effective and scalable solution to critical health conditions such as COVID-19.

Clinical trials of ZingiVir-H, Pankajakasthuri’s new drug, are underway among 112 patients as an adjunct therapy for the pandemic as well as among 135 additional patients as a stand-alone treatment in a double-blind study.

The trials are progressing in 96 of the patients undergoing adjunct therapy. Out of these, the results of 42 patients are being published as an interim report.

Among the 42 patients, 22 were treated with ZingiVir-H and 20 were treated with a placebo. It was found that all the 22 patients treated with ZingiVir-H were discharged on the fourth day after real-time Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR).

The remaining 20 patients in the control group who received placeboes continued to be COVID-19+ve for 5 to 11 days.

ZingiVir-H tablets had obtained the Drugs License of the Government of Kerala and underwent cytotoxicity tests on human cells at the Rajiv Gandhi Center for Biotechnology and CSIR-NIIST at Thiruvananthapuram. After the animal studies were proved to be harmless, the clinical trial registration was obtained from the Clinical Trial Registry of India (CTRI).

Thereafter, the drug was placed in Randomized Single Blind Placebo Controlled Multi-Center Clinical Trial as per World Health Organization (WHO)'s ICH-GCP standards at various medical colleges with approvals from respective ethical committees.