The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) is conducting clinical trials to check the efficacy of virgin coconut oil (VCO) as health supplement against COVID-19.
Science Secretary Fortunato de la Peña said the trials will be hospital- and community-based.
The hospital-based trial started April 8 at the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH).
Sec. De la Peña said the VCO will serve as a “supplement to the daily treatment regimen” of the COVID-19 positive patients.
He said a minimum of 40 patients will participate in the trial taking VCO and another 40 as control without VCO for a minimum of one month.
He added that the P4.9 million DOST-funded test at PGH will assess the possible benefits of VCO to patients with moderate to severe COVID-19 in addition to the drugs being assessed in the clinical trials.
The research will be done in cooperation with the DOST and the UP-PGH Clinical COVID-19 Research Group and the Metro Manila Health Research and Development Consortium of the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development.
Meanwhile, the community-based trial, for persons under investigation (PUIs), will be conducted at isolation facilities in a community and a hospital in Region 4A.
DOST Calabarzon collaborated with Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) on the project.
Sec. De la Peña said the trial will have 40 patients given VCO and 40 control or those not given VCO both for the hospital and community trials. The trials’s P7 million budget will be funded by DOST and PCA.
The Food and Nutrition Research Institute will lead the community-based study. It will incorporate VCO in the food provided to the PUIs.
The study aims to assess possible benefits of VCO to patients with COVID-19 as well as contacts and other high-risk groups.
A team plans to conduct the same study in their previous intervention studies and the dietary supplementation may run for at least four weeks.
Professor Dr. Fabian M. Dayrit of Ateneo de Manila University (AdMU) proposed these clinical trials because of the known wide usage of VCO against viral and bacterial diseases.
The clinical trials are conducted parallel with the laboratory-based study being done by AdMU, led by Dayrit, in coordination with the Duke-National University of Singapore.
Result of the laboratory test may be available in two months, according to Dayrit.
Dayrit said in a research paper he co-wrote that coconut oil and its components—lauric acid and monolaurin—“have been shown to be safe and effective antiviral compounds in both humans and animals.”
Because of the antiviral and antibacterial protection that it provides to animals, coconut oil is used in farm animals and pets as veterinary feed supplements in chicken, swine and dogs.
Research show monolaurin can effectively protect chicken against avian influenza virus.
They also cited that monolaurin was found to be highly active against repeated high viral loads of Simian immunodeficiency virus in macaques.
A 35% gel of monolaurin was developed for application in the female genital tract to protect against HIV. They said, “coconut oil itself has been shown to have anti-HIV properties in small clinical studies.”