Agricom.id, JAKARTA - Ministry of Agriculture through Badan Penelitian dan Pengembangan Pertanian (Balitbangtan) is doing research together to find the anti-virus potential from one kind of plantation which is good at the essential oil, that is, eucalyptus.

The essential oil and extraction of the plantation have the alternative as the medicine to kinds of infectious, namely the diseases caused by some virus, suh as, influenza or even corona virus.

“The researches are being done by Balitbangtan through three units, they are, Balai Besar Penelitian Veteriner (BB Litvet), Balai Penelitian Tanaman Rempah dan Obat (Balittro), and Balai Besar Litbang Pascapanen Pertanian (BB Pascapanen). The same researches are about to prove the anti-virus potential to some virus,” Head of Balitbangtan, Fadjry Djufry said, Tuesday (5/5/2020), in the official written statement to Agricom.id.

He also mentioned, though the research did not use corona virus (Covid-19), the scientific research from eucalyptus anti-virus done by Balitbangtan could give information to the people that eucalyptus is potential as the anti-virus and it is hoped to help prevent the spread of Covid-19. 

The research could be the new hope for the people to advantage and develop eucapyptus to prevent the virus infection and could be used to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

“The next research and development would be done by taking others to get the optimal result,” Fadjry said.

Head of Balai Besar Penelitian Veteriner who is also virology researcher, Indi Dharmayanti said that the tests were done to influenza virus (H5N1), gammacorona, and betacoronavirus clade 2a as the models of Covid-19 and they were tested in vitro. Alphacoronavirus and betacoronavirus mostly infect the mammals while gammacoronavirus and deltacoronavirus could infect the poultry, birds, pigs, whale, and dolphin.

The research result done in the laboratory of BSL level 3 belonging to Balai Besar Penelitian Veteriner showed that eucalyptus could be used as the anti-virus within the virus effective killing about 80-100% but it depends on the kinds of virus.

“Including using the Covid and influenza virus H5N1,” Indi said.

Meanwhile, Head of Balai Penelitian Tanaman Rempah dan Obat, Evi Savitri explained that essential oil in eucalyptus has the compound - 1,8-cineole which is called as eucalyptol. This is the main component of eucalyptus leaves.

“The compound 1,8-cineole in eucalyptus has anti-virus, anti-inflammation, and anti-microbe,” she said.

She also mentioned that the compound could postpone the replicate of Covid-19 by binding the Mpro (the nutrient) in the virus. This nutrient could play its role to ripen the virus and the cleavage of the poly-protein of the virus to prevent the infection spread.

“In the research, the essential oil in eucalyptus was processed within steam distillation in the laboratory of Balittro,” Evi said.

The nano technology was also done to get some active materials which could be more stable and have higher effectiveness.

Head of Balai Besar Litbang Pascapanen Pertanian, Prayudi Syamsuri also said that from the result of the research, Balitbangtan developed some proto-types, such as, roll on, balm, aroma therapy oil, inhaler, and necklet. (A2)