Sambiloto (Andrographis paniculata (Burm. F.) can be used as adjunctive therapy or prevention of COVID-19

2020 is the most historic year for all of us in health, the coronavirus's emergence. This virus causes a disease called COVID-19. COVID-19 is a disease caused by the coronavirus and first occurred in Wuhan City, China, at the end of 2019. The symptoms of COVID-19 are almost the same as those of the common cold or allergic rhinitis. Symptoms often arise from COVID-19 are fever, severe headaches, sore throat, and dry cough to shortness of breath when it hits the lung organs. Whereas if the symptoms are accompanied by phlegm (colds) and cough with mucus, it is not a symptom of COVID-19 or a small chance of being diagnosed with COVID-19. There are several stages of the coronavirus infecting humans, namely the attachment phase (infection to the host), the replication phase of the host cell, and the maturation phase after replication. Until now, there has not been found an antiviral or drug that can treat COVID-19, so it is necessary to develop drugs to overcome this disease by inhibiting some of the stages mentioned above. While waiting for the discovery of drugs as anti-COVID-19, it helps us to prevent the spread of COVID-19 disease in addition to wearing masks, washing hands, social distancing, not shaking hands, keeping a distance, so it needs to be supported by consuming nutritious food, health supplements and herbs for boosting the immune system. The immune system becomes one of the important things that is prepared for the prevention of diseases that are becoming a pandemic in 2020. The virus cannot attach or infect the host when the immune system is well, and the virus will not be able to replicate even the attachment process will be hampered.

Nowadays, there are many medicines developing back to nature. Natural ingredients have a lot of natural chemical contents, and their use must be right, both in terms of processing and dosage. Coronavirus infects host cells and causes inflammatory mediators to emerge so that inflammation or inflammation is so intense. Inflammation is a natural body mechanism as a body's defense reaction when foreign substances are entering the body. The body will produce many cytokines to fight foreign substances such as interleukin-6 (IL-6) and TNF-α. The characteristics of inflammation are fever (body temperature above 37.5 °C), pain, redness, and edema, or swelling. But the coronavirus can cause excessive inflammation (inflammatory storms), and our body is unable to accept it and can cause damage to organs, one of which is the lungs in the alveoli of the lungs and is known as pneumonia. Pneumonia is inflammation that occurs in the alveoli of the lung with apparent symptoms of shortness of breath. For this reason, COVID-19 is characterized by symptoms of shortness of breath. The development of natural ingredients in the treatment of this disease is focused on the process of modulation of the immune system, alleviating cytokine storms, as an inhibitor of inflammation and as an antioxidant.

Sambiloto (Andrographis paniculata (Burm. F.) can be developed as an herbal for additional or supportive therapy and prevention of COVID-19 disease. Several studies have reported that it contains active substances that can enhance the immune system. Sambiloto contains andrographolide which is known to increase the amount of warrior for immunity namely IgG and regulating macrophages to destroy foreign substances that enter the body (Rahayu, 2015 and Wang et al., 2010) Androgarafolid is also known to have anti-inflammatory activity (Hossain et al., 2014) and antioxidants by inducing the enzyme catalase, superoxide dismutase, and glutathione-S-transferase so that free radicals can be degraded (Jayakumar et al., 2013). Besides, in 2020 there was a study on bitter in silico.In Silico, research is a computerized study to evaluate the ability of an active substance to bind to its target protein. Andrographolide can bind to the target of action namely ACE2 (the initial phase, the attachment phase or the phase of infection from the coronavirus to the host cell) and the protease enzyme (the maturation phase of the coronavirus after replicating in the host's body) (Laksmiani et al., 2020). The processing method and its use are 3 grams of dry ingredients or 25 grams of fresh ingredients boiled and taken two times a day before meals, salt, or acid or sugar can be added so that the taste is not too bitter (Badan POM RI, 2007).

Author: Ni Putu Linda Laksmiani (laksmini@unud.ac.id), https://fmipa.unud.ac.id/

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