Even as China has warned that a 'grave' situation is facing the nation in the fight against SARS and appealed to the medical community to do their utmost to prevent the killer disease from spreading further, speakers at a Homoeopathy meet in Hyderabad say that they have at least 336 remedies for it.
The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, called SARS, which reportedly originated in South China's Guangdong province in November last year, had so far claimed 60 people in mainland China and affected 1,334. The epidemic has killed about 120 people worldwide. World Health Organisation has added Beijing, the Chinese capital, to the list of SARS-affected cities. The disease is spreading across Asia, the US and Europe.
According to Dr Srinivas Rao, vice-president, the Indian Institute of Homoeopathic Physicians, “Allopathy aims at combating viral diseases by tackling the viral protein, whereas homoeopathy enhances the innate immunity of the body so that the person himself can fight the virus. Most people scoff at the fact that homoeopathy has remedies for common cold. But it has remedies for common cold as well as for SARS, which is a form of common cold with a greater virulence.”
Speaking at the two-day conference of the Association, Dr V K Waghary said, “Homoeopathy cures the patient and not the disease. Each patient is treated by his symptoms.”
The nearest analogy to this could be the genome concept, which has been the principle of homoeopathy for 248 years, Dr Srinivasa Rao said.
Says Dr P Pratap Reddy, “As far as SARS is concerned, allopaths look at the typical symptoms found in every patient. They do not look at symptoms like red eyes, dry lips, white coating on the tongue – all of which are considered irrelevant by allopaths – but homoeopathy works in tandem with the constitution of a person.
Dr P Karthik Reddy said, “After a study of the pattern of symptoms of SARS and the medicines in homoeopathy that can be used to treat the disease, it is certain that SARS can be classified as an 'epidemic disease.'
SARS usually begins with a fever. The fever is sometimes associated with chills or other symptoms, including headache, general feeling of discomfort and body aches. Some people also experience mild respiratory symptoms at the outset. After 2-7 days, the patients may develop a dry, non-productive cough that might be accompanied by or progress to the point where insufficient oxygen reaches the blood. In 10-20 % cases, patients will require mechanical ventilation. The disease can be transmitted through air when a patient coughs or sneezes droplets into the air and someone breathes them in.
Coronaviruses are believed to be the cause for the disease. These are a group of viruses that have a halo or crown-like appearance when viewed under a microscope. These viruses are a common cause of mild to moderate upper-respiratory illness in humans and are associated with respiratory, gastrointestinal, liver and neurologic diseases in animals. Coronaviruses can survive in the environment for as long as three hours.