Investigating the Effect of Ethanol Extract of Satureja khuzestanica Jamzad on patients with COVID-19 using Real-Time PCR

In recent years, a new variant of Betacoronavirus has been spread globally called COVID-19. It can cause severe respiratory disease or, in some cases, even death. Traditional medicines to treat this disease are not so promising. Thus, the lack of a specific treatment for COVID-19 has encouraged researchers in most countries to use medicinal plants known as antivirus medicines. In the present study, the effect of ethanol extract of Satureja khuzestanica Jamzad on patients with COVID-19 has been investigated. For this purpose, 40 patients with COVID-19 were recruited. After RNA was extracted, the samples with low CT were used to infect the Vero cell line. The infected cells were treated with different concentrations of the extract of Satureja khuzestanica Jamzad, and the cellular viability was checked using the MTT test. Moreover, the level of gene expression was evaluated using Real-Time PCR. As the results showed, Satureja khuzestanica Jamzad can decrease the number of coronaviruses, and the expression of corona genes under the effect of it has a significant decrease compared to that of the control group. It was concluded that Satureja khuzestanica Jamzad could kill the coronavirus, and consequently, its compounds are of antiviral properties.