Boosting immunity is the preliminary shield in the battle against COVID-19. DR PRATIP BANERJI tells you how homoeopathy can help prevent the contagion

The outbreak and spread of COVID-19 has left most of us panic-stricken. And the pandemic has wrecked havoc across the world. COVID-19 is a viral infection and humans have no natural immunity to viruses. The research community is perplexed because of its ever-evolving mutations.

Currently, the conventional treatment of Covid 19 infection is being done with some anti-viral medicines and antibiotics. While these anti-viral medicines were found to have had some effect on SARS and MERS infections earlier, which were caused by similar viruses, so far there is no definite information that they are having an effect on COVID-19 cases.

Boosting immunity is exactly what is required in the battle against this disease- to prevent, as well as help sick patients recover from this contagion.

This is where homeopathy has a distinct advantage, and can be deployed to effectively combat the pandemic. Historically, homoeopathy has an excellent track record in the treatment of epidemics/pandemics. Homoeopathic medicines are safe to use, and we can expect very little, if any, side-effects as can be experienced by using other systems of medicine.

In homoeopathy, an agent is used to treat the same symptoms in a diseased human being that it can produce in a healthy one. Thus, the homoeopathic arsenal against any disease already exists, and it is only a question of matching the symptoms of the contagion to the known symptoms of a medicine which is the most similar. Thus, the reaction time between diagnosis and treatment is reduced dramatically.

COVID-19 is basically a respiratory infection which initially affects the upper respiratory tract; if allowed to progress, it settles in the lungs (lower respiratory tract), causing pneumonia and fibrosis with a poor prognosis. Due to this, any and all treatment should be targeted as such. In the treatment of COVID-19 positive cases, so far whatever information is available, does not provide anything new in this virus, except for the fact that it is more aggressive in its progression, and prognosis is fatal in immune compromised and elderly patients.

Historically, the practice had tremendous success in treating viral diseases, such as the common cold and different types of flu, dengue, measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox and even the odd case of rabies, using homoeopathy — it is important that this treatment option is tried for building the immunity of the population to effectively combat the virus.

The writer is a homeopath and Co-founder of Dr Prasanta Banerji Homeopathic Research Foundation