Abstract

Herbal and herbo-mineral preparations are being traditionally used in Indian system of medicines. These preparations have numerous health benefits that have been involved in their widespread use for the treatment of different diseases/disorders by traditional Ayurvedic medicinal practitioners. However, to the best of our knowledge, no systematic study regarding its toxicity profile has been reported for a herbomineral preparation with antiviral activity. This study aimed to investigate the subacute 28-days repeated dose oral toxicity of ZingiVir-H, herbomineral drug having antiviral activity in Wistar rats. According to OECD TG 407, rats were divided into 6 groups. The ZingiVir-H at the doses of 500, 1000 and 1500 mg/kg body weight daily was administered orally for 28 days for treatment and satellite groups, whereas an equal volume of vehicle was given to control groups. In order to access reversibility, satellite groups were kept for another 14 days post-treatment. Important parameters such as general behaviour, body and organ weight, haematological, serum biochemistry, organ macroscopy and microscopy were conducted to examine its safety. Treatment with ZingiVir-H daily for continuous 28 day did not show any signs of toxicity. Moreover, abnormalities on behaviour, food and water intakes, body weight, relative organ weights, haematological, and serum biochemical parameters were not observed. Histopathological examination of vital organs recorded normal architecture suggesting no morphological alterations after ZingiVir-H treatment. These results demonstrated that ZingiVir-H did not possess potential to induce any toxicity in the animals. Moreover, this is the first report on the toxicity study of herbo-mineral preparation with antiviral property.

Keywords: Herbomineral; Toxicity; Wistar rats; ZingiVir-H