Renowned veterinarian Prof N Punniamurthy is a man of analogies. He compares India’s rich traditional medicine system to a cave of diamonds. Until discovered, the diamonds are only seen as stones, says the Tamil Nadu-based translational scientist, who has been engaged in developing ethnoveterinary herbal remedies for over two decades.
To his great joy, a team of academicians led by Dr Ratheesh M, Head of the Department of Biochemistry at St Thomas College, Pala, in Kerala’s Kottayam, recently dug into the cave and emerged with a diamond. They made a breakthrough by scientifically validating a traditional ethnoveterinary medicine developed by Prof Punniamurthy for the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) to treat mastitis, a serious illness affecting the dairy industry worldwide.
Rajiv Ranjan Singh, Union Minister of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, said in a recent strategy document that mastitis results in an annual loss of Rs 2,370 crore to India’s dairy sector, mainly due to treatment costs, discarded milk, and reduced productivity.
A screengrab of the first page of the scientific paper published in ‘Microbial Pathogenesis’.
The pioneering work by Dr Ratheesh and team received global recognition after publication in the international, peer-reviewed journal Microbial Pathogenesis . The scientific validation, which proved the medicine’s efficacy, was also formally acknowledged by the World Health Organisation and the European Union at a recent Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) mitigation workshop jointly organised by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations and the NDDB in Gujarat.
“This scientific validation has strengthened our hands. In other words, it has made ethnoveterinary medicine evidence-based and functional,” said Prof Punniamurthy. “We’re telling the world that we’ve a solution,” said the former Head, EVM Herbal Research Centre, Tamil Nadu University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Thanjavur.
The traditional recipe
The traditional formulation Dr Ratheesh and team investigated is a blend of aloe vera, fresh turmeric, slaked lime and sesame oil. “Though the formulation has been in use for several years, it lacked scientific validation. We conducted a detailed biochemical study to demonstrate its anti-inflammatory and restorative properties at the molecular level,” said Dr Ratheesh. According to him, the validated formulation was found effective in reducing inflammation, oxidative damage and pain receptors and restoring normal cellular function, which were disrupted by the bacteria, Staphylococcus aureus.
Dr Ratheesh M, Head of the Department of Biochemistry at St Thomas College, Pala. Photo: Special arrangement
The researchers used a combination of Aloe vera leaf (250 g), fresh turmeric (50 g), calcium hydroxide (15 g) and sesame oil (600 mL), and tried the formulation in water and oil bases. “Firstly, removed the thorns from the aloe vera leaf and cut into small pieces. Then blended it with fresh turmeric and calcium hydroxide to form a reddish paste. After proper blending, add sesame oil and stirred it well. Finally, the oil-based formulation was obtained. For the water-based formulation, the ingredients used are the same; instead of oil-based water (200 mL) was the base used,” the research paper noted.
Dr Ratheesh said his team worked a whole year at the laboratories of St Thomas College and at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. “Research is not a 9-5 job, so we were practically engaged in the work around the clock, even on Sundays,” said Dr Ratheesh. The team comprised Dr Sandya S (IIS, Bengaluru), Dr A V Harikumar (General Manager, Animal Health, NDDB), Dr N M Ponnanna, Dr K S N L Surendra (NDDB Scientists), and research scholars Dr Svenia P Jose, Dr S Sheethal, and Mr Sony Rajan from the Department of Biochemistry.
Veterinarian Prof N Punniamurthy. Photo: Special arrangement
Impact of the work
Antibiotic therapy is the prevalent treatment for bovine mastitis worldwide. But the widespread use of antibiotics in animal husbandry and dairying has led to antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the ability of bacteria and viruses to develop resistance to the same antibiotics used against them.
“The WHO, FAO, WOAH (World Organisation for Animal Health) and the United Nations don’t always come together. They joined hands to fight AIDS and Ebola, and now they are doing it to tackle AMR. That is how big the problem is,” said Prof Punniamurthy.
“Let me give you a shocking data: Only 30% of mastitis cases require antibiotics. The Netherlands adopted a policy on the use of antibiotics in livestock production more than a decade ago. It is the first country to cut down the use of antibiotics by about 70%,” said Dr Punniamurthy.
He was one of the speakers at the Global South Perspective to Update Global AMR Action Plan’ held between September 8 and 10. One of the key recommendations to update GAP-AMR calls for recognising the preventive role of ‘ethnoveterinary medicines’ and encouraging their systemic adoption.
The ethnoveterinary medicine to treat mastitis is one of the 34 recipes developed by Prof Punniamurthy and adopted by the NDDB. Dr Ratheesh believes the recent scientific validation reaffirms India’s rich heritage of traditional knowledge and emphasises the need for scientific collaborations to advance similar evidence-based solutions.