Integrated medicine approach shortens COVID-19 patients' stay in hospital: Study
CHENNAI: An integrated medicine approach in treating Coronavirus patients not only shortened their stay in hospital but also helped the infected recover faster, revealed a study by Siddha doctors initiated when the pandemic was at the peak in Tamil Nadu.
The overall median length of stay was 12 days for those who were administered zinc, vitamin c tablets, as advised by the state government and Kabasura Kudineer, a Siddha polyherbal formulation, which was advised by the union Ayush ministry, claims a survival analysis study.
The study was to assess the length of stay of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) patients under Integrated Medicine - Zinc, Vitamin C and Kabasura Kudineer, carried out by the team of government Siddha doctors at the Government Medical College and ESI Hospital Coimbatore.
According to Dr Sathya Rajeswaran, Director in-charge, Siddha Central Research Institute, Chennai, the data was collected from confirmed COVID-19 cases admitted in GMC & ESI Hospital Coimbatore.
"In our study, no death was reported," he said.
The study was carried out on patients admitted from April 26, 2020. Their discharges were taken for analysis upto May 5, 2020. The outcome of the study was published in the European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine, recently.
Out of 251 COVID positive cases, included in the study, 151 had close contact with positive cases, 94 had travel history through containment zones like Delhi, and one person had a travel history to Kashmir and only the remaining 5 were free from travel history.
The duration of hospital stay varied from 1-36 days.
Nearly 5.2 percent of the patients were above 60 years, 75.3 percent were aged 20-60 years, and the remaining 19.5 percent were 0-20 group.
All the 251 positive cases were admitted to the hospital and of them 141 were male, 83 were female, 12 boys, and 15 were girls, a senior Siddha doctor at the Central Council for Research in Siddha, Chennai, told PTI.
Fever and cough were the main symptoms of the patients while some displayed respiratory distress and others were asymptomatic.
All positive cases who turned negative and were discharged from hospital were considered for study, Dr Sathya Rajeswaran added.