The Federation of Philippine Industries is pushing for the use of coconut oil as alternative treatment for COVID-19 infections.
FPI president Jesus Arranza said the government should explore the use of coconut oil, which is a ready, local preparation, that may help in combatting the effects of COVID-19 virus in positive patients.
“The government then should encourage the use of virgin coconut oil in preventing the surge of COVID-19 cases since COVID-19 is one the envelope viruses,” he said.
The group, he added, had previously commissioned a study of coconut oil. Among the finding was its effectiveness as a deactivating agent of lipid envelope virus, “which is exactly what COVID is.”
The Department of Science and Technology had confirmed this in clinical studies, he added.
The FPI also encouraged the government to communicate with the World Health Organization so that the findings of the study and, lately of the Department of Science and Technology, can be introduced globally.
“This will help not only our coconut industry, our coconut farmers but also the government since if it will be accepted by the WHO, just imagine the export quantity that will be coming out from the country to the world market,” Arranza said.
The group, he noted, was worried over the exorbitant price of imported medicines used to treat COVID-19 patients.
“Many of the families with COVID patients even go to as far as the black market to buy these medicines at prices twice or thrice more than the original price,” Arranza said.
While the group does not necessarily support importation of foreign-made medications for COVID, it sought importation rights for farmers in the event of food shortage.
“We strongly believe that in event, like what is happening today, where the harvest of palay and other crops is affected by typhoon, by flood and pork is also affected by the African Swine Fever (ASF), it should be the farmers, who incurred losses in both livestock and agricultural farming, who should be the one to import, not any third party who has nothing to do with agriculture, specifically those who did not even incur losses,” FPI said.
The exercise should help the farmers and those who incurred losses to recoup faster and continue production of their crops and livestock, if given the chance to import, Arranza added.
