Experts keen on sea buckthorn drugs for Covid cure

Want clinical trials on human beings to be completed

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Facilitating Army troops

Sea buckthorn is rich in vitamins and antioxidants, which have the potential to protect against cardiovascular diseases and diabetes

Experts say drugs developed from sea buckthorn can help in combating coronavirus

The plant is also useful as a quality firewood, fodder and soil binder in the cold desert Himalayas

It has been found effective in protecting Indian Army troops against high altitude-related health problems such as hypoxia, snow bites and UV radiation

It can also help in rapid acclimatisation of the Army troops to high altitude border areas during war time

Tribune News Service

Shimla, June 19

Experts have urged the DRDO and other research organisations to timely complete the clinical trials of sea buckthorn drugs on human beings for their development to protect people from Covid-19 and other severe health problems and also help in rapid acclimatisation of Indian Army soldiers to high-altitude areas.

The Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences (DIPAS) and the Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS), Delhi, have carried out preclinical research on sea buckthorn and found it effective in protecting Indian Army troops against high altitude-related health problems such as hypoxia, snow bites and UV radiation. Afforestation with sea buckthorn is the answer to the twin problems of combating the Covid-19 pandemic and meeting the challenge of security threat in the border areas in the Himalayas. These problems are likely to stay for a long time if appropriate measures are not taken, say the experts.

“Massive afforestation with sea buckthorn and its use to develop drugs to combat coronavirus as well as for the acclimatisation of Indian Army troops to high altitude border areas of Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh is the need of the hour,” says Dr Virendra Singh, general secretary of Sea buckthorn Association of India.

The Union Government had sanctioned Rs 1,000-crore project called National Mission on Sea buckthorn under the Climate Change Programme in 2012 but funds were not provided and till date no money had been sanctioned, he said.

CSK Himachal Pradesh Agricultural University, Palampur, has done pioneering work on sea buckthorn and the Indian Institute of Technology, in collaboration with other research organisations and a private sector company, recently submitted a Rs 7.5-crore proposal to the Union Ministry of AYUSH for funding for the development of immunity booster and anti-coronavirus drug from sea buckthorn, which grows naturally in the region.