Herbal Therapies Used by People Living With HIV: Andrographis

is a weed found primarily in India, Thailand and Indonesia. It's an antiviral treatment that also appears beneficial to the immune system. A drug called AndroVir, which has been extracted from Andrographis paniculata, has been patented by the small pharmaceutical company Paracelsian Inc. In a small group of subjects, preliminary trials showed increases in CD4+ counts and a 30-per-cent decrease in viral load after nine weeks of AndroVir use. Because highly active antiretroviral therapy has been shown to be much more effective in managing HIV infection, there is no longer much interest in Androvir. The drug is not available in Canada, but the dried plant, which goes by the names chuan-xin-lian, chuan-hsin-lien, i-chien-hsi and several others, may be obtained through a Chinese herbalist.