By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MD
In a groundbreaking new discovery a Tasmanian company has used seaweed as treatment for swine flu. The lab trials have been going on for the past nine months using the undaria seaweed (better know as wakame seaweed) harvested from waters at Triabunna, of Tasmania's East Coast.
Lab tests were performed under contract by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the U.S. The results have been encouraging. This could be the first natural medicine for treatment of swine flu.
This development was announced by Tasmanian scientist Helen Fitton yesterday. “With swine flu already becoming resistant to some other antiviral agents, we believe that the extract - known as Maritech 926 - offers a potent, natural alternative which supports the immune system against viral attacks,” Dr Fitton said.
The procedure of preparation could be difficult. It is taking 200Kgs of undaria seaweed to produce 1 kg of the powdered drug. Although this compound was being researched for the past eight years by biotechnology company Marinova, based at Cambridge, it is only last December that its efficacy against H1N1 flu is proven says Dr. Fitton. “In December new results found that it prevents the H1N1 virus from entering the cell and multiplying…Once you reach the effective concentration the virus is unable to enter cells - and only millionths of a gram (of Maritech 926) is needed to be effective as an inhibitor to H1N1…This ingredient is ready now to be incorporated into a product to prevent H1N1 from entering your body…The compound protects the seaweed itself from marine toxins and pathogens and similarly protects against the type of viruses that affect human cells…It has also shown very good antiviral activities against a range of influenza strains, HIV and herpes.”