Oral rinsing with green tea, some fruit juices can prevent COVID-19 infection
By: Team Ifairer | Posted: 05-11-2020
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The SARS-CoV-2 virus, that causes COVID-19, primarily affects the respiratory tract. The virus can be transmitted to people through cough and sneeze droplets from an infected person, or when these droplets are released into the air and inhaled by someone healthy. Since the virus initially affects the upper respiratory tract and the main entry points of the virus into the body are nose and mouth, oral rinsing with certain products that can kill the virus can help in prevention of spread from one person to another, and can also control symptoms in the infected person to a large extent. Studies have previously suggested that washing or rinsing your mouth with mouthwashes, iodine, and other solutions can help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Natural and herbal products have also been proven, time and again, to help in antiviral treatments. According to recent findings, pomegranate and chokeberry extracts have shown promising against the flu virus, in vitro. Gargling with green tea has also resulted in a low incidence of flu infections.
According to a study conducted by researchers from the Institute of Molecular Virology, Ulm University Medical Center, Technische Universitaet Dresden and CogniVerde GmbH, green tea, black chokeberry, pomegranate, and elderberry juices may help in the prevention of viral infection in cells. The findings were published on the preprint server bioRxiv.
For the study, the authors used Vero E6 cells to test vaccinia virus, influenza A virus, adenovirus type 5, and SARS-CoV-2. The researchers then mixed herbal substances with the virus, incubated them at room temperature, determined infectivity using tissue culture infectious dose 50 (TCID50) endpoint titration.
After a 5 minute incubation with the herbal substances, researchers found that chokeberry juice decreased infectivity almost 3,000 times compared to a control with only a buffer. The elderberry juice, pomegranate juice, and green tea decreased infectivity by about ten times. An increase in incubation time to 20 min increased the activity only marginally, indicating the antiviral activity is rapid. This suggests that the herbal extracts are generally active against enveloped viruses.