1. Introduction
sore throat, diarrhoea, confusion, fatigue, fever, chest pain, ARDS, cough, headache, dyspnoea, anorexia
ACUTE RESPIRATORY DISTRESS SYNDROME, SORE THROAT, VIRUS, COVID-19 INFECTION, ARDS, SEVERE ACUTE RESPIRATORY SYNDROME, ANOREXIA
Novel Corona Virus also called severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus (SARS-CoV-2) was isolated from the patients in Wuhan on January 7, 2020 [The clinical picture of COVID-19 varies from mild flu-like symptoms to severe stages of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), the commonest presentations being, fever, cough, dyspnoea, fatigue, anorexia, muscle-ache, confusion, headache, sore throat, chest pain and diarrhoea [In the current scenario, management of COVID-19 is largely symptomatic and includes antipyretics, antitussives, anti-coagulants, antibiotics, corticosteroids, nutritional supplements, and oxygen support therapy [There is a major difference in the principles of Homoeopathy and those of other streams of medicine. The choice of a homoeopathic medicine depends not only upon the diagnosis of the patient, but on a variety of patient related factors. Major factors that decide the choice of medicine are the symptoms of the patient, personal history and mental state. The homoeopathic specialist chooses the drug on the basis of a variety of factors that will help in customizing the treatment for individual patients [The outbreak of COVID 19 and its management was a challenge to the health-care system globally, with limited availability of crucial resources like beds in intensive care units (ICU), skilled resources to handle such critical cases and medical equipment like oxygen as well oxygen or life supporting devices. In such an alarming situation, and based on the earlier precedence of use of Homoeopathy in epidemics, the authors took this initiative to evaluate if add-on Homoeopathy could benefit the cases.The objective of the current study was thus to evaluate if homoeopathic medicines, when used as an add-on treatment to Standard of Care (SOC), could be useful in the patients suffering from moderate to severe COVID-19 infection, as compared to standard care alone. As the morbidity and mortality of the COVID-19 was observed to be more in moderate to severe cases, it was decided to include only these cases for evaluation of the role of add-on Homoeopathy.