Malaria is an infectious feverish disease caused by protozoa of the genus Plasmodium which are ordinarily transmitted to man by the bites of female mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles. The disease is characterised by acute attack of chills, fever and sweating which recur at regular intervals.

Malaria was widely prevalent all over the world and claimed millions of lives. However, by using modern antimalarial drugs. It has also been realised that the modern allopathic antimalarial drugs are highly toxic and their repeated use causes numerous side- effects resulting in ocular disturbances, etc.

In India, the “Ayurvedic” system of medicine is an age old system that provides methodology for treatment of several  diseases and its literature contains many drugs prescribed for  treatment of malaria. The Central Council of Ayurveda & Siddha have developed a new formulation, prepared from four different types of indigenously available herbs, which has been  found to be very effective in the safe treatment of malaria. It has been named as Ayush-64. It has demonstrated effectiveness both in curing and prevention. 

CLINICAL TRIALS

A series of clinical and field trials were carried out at different Institute/ Centres of the Council by distributing Ayush-64 tablets.

A clinical study on malaria patients drawn from malaria clinics of the Corporation of Madras (India) was conducted. Of the 58 cases 30 received Ayurvedic treatment (Ayush-64) and 28, standard modern allopathic drug. The duration of treatment was 4 days. The dosage of Ayurvedic formulation was 1500 mg. on first day and 750 mg. on subsequent days and that of the allopathic  drug was 600 mg. of chloroquine and 30 mg. of Primaquine on first day and 15 mg. of Primaquine for the following days. Both the drugs ere powdered and encapsulated balancing the weight to 500 mg. with starch, coded and randomly allocated. Absence of malarial parasite in the blood smear 2 days after the period of treatment was taken as the criterion for assessing the efficacy of the drug.

On the basis of blood smear examination before and after treatment the efficacy of the Ayurvedic drug was found to be as good as that of the allopathic drugs like chloroquine and Primaquine. Successful treatment of one severe case of malaria was observed where that patient responded fully to the treatment with Ayush-64 by the daily dosage of 1500 mg. for 4 days without any side effect. Ayush-64 can not   only   be    more economical to the patients, it is free from side effects of any kind due to its non synthetic herbal base. 

PROCESS

Aqueous extracts of the various parts of four different types of plants e.g. root, stem, leaf, flower and fruit are prepared in relevant proportions. From each extracts of three plants, decoction is made with water in the prescribed ratio. The decoction is boiled to reduce the volume of the extract of given level. The concentrated extract is dried after filtration.

The powders obtained from the aqueous extracts of the three plant materials and 100 mesh powder extracted from the fourth plant are mixed in the prescribed proportion alongwith some additives like starch, gum acacia, etc.  and sodium benzoate. Prescribed quantities of herbal extracts in powder form & additives are fed into a ball mill for uniform mixing and the fine grinding. The mass is then granulated. The granules are dried at 70oC in a hot air drier. The granules of the desired size are fed to a heavy duty tablets making machine. The tablets are strip packed to protect them from the atmospheric moisture.