Herbal treatment of foot and mouth disease oral lesions in cows

Objectives: Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious viral disease which affects all cloven-footed animals. The virus is widely disseminated to many epidermal sites, but gross lesions develop only in areas subjected to mechanical trauma such as the epithelium of the mouth and tongue. Hence, the treatment of oral lesions is important. There are several chemical and commercial drugs to resolve oral lesions of FMD but the present research, suggests the herbal drugs to treat them. Materials Methods: The affected cows with FMD (n=30) were randomly divided into 3 equal groups and their oral lesions were treated by 3 therapeutic regimens. Group 1 treated with glycerin iodine, Group 2 received the vinegar (pH=2.4) and Group 3 treated with concentrated extract of pomegranate (%40) for at least 5 days and twice daily. The healing processes of oral lesions were monitored along with the application of three compounds. Results Conclusion: The monitoring of 3 groups showed a more rapid healing of oral lesions in vinegar and concentrated extract of pomegranate. The study showed that these herbal drugs are more potent than glycerin iodine to resolve oral lesions of FMD. It seems that the use of these two herbal compounds has a direct effect on lowering virus concentration in oral epithelium and in the case of concentrated extract of pomegranate an extra effect of antioxidant activity may be responsible for its better effect. The low pH of vinegar and concentrated extract of pomegranate has a key role to decrease virus load in affected area. Furthermore, concentrated extract of pomegranate contains ellagic acid which has an anti-viral activity. Finally, it may be suggested that vinegar and concentrated extract of pomegranate can be used as two herbal drugs to better resolve of oral lesions of FMD in cows.