A New Herbal Medicine Formulation with Potential Anti-scabies Properties to Treat Demodex and Sarcoptes Parasites

Abstract

Scabies is considered an external parasite notorious for its high prevalence causing severe and contagious skin lesions in humans and animals worldwide. This study has introduced a medicine to treat dogs infested with scabies (variants of Demodex, Sarcoptes, Psoroptes, Otodectes, etc.). The present study offers a no-side-effect herbal formulation to treat dogs infested with scabies. Unlike oral and injectable medicines, which take the form of an ointment and are topically applied on-site, this medicinal formulation can be easily used without concerns over its side effects or consumption dosages. This medicinal formulation requires no skin rinsing due to its herbal and high skin absorption properties, as recovery may take less than a month with a maximum of two times of application. To carry out the experiment, 25 sick dogs with various breeds and ages suspected of scabies were gathered. Following accurate morphological examinations of all the samples, a deep skin chip of the lesion site was provided, which was examined by a microscope. Then, 13 dogs (Mix, Terrier, Pug, Husky, Spitz) were infested with Demodex scabies and 12 dogs (Pittbull, Mix, Shih Tzu, Terrier, Boxer, Setter) with Sarcoptic scabies. The prepared product was topically administered at a constant 2% dosage to the bodies of all the samples. To prepare the ointment, 1 g of Borax (Na₂B₄O₇·10H₂O) was first dissolved in 35 g deionized water and heated to 70°C. Then, 45 g of liquid paraffin (C_nH_2n+2) was mixed with 1 g of Carvacrol (C₁₀H₁₄O) and 1 g of geranium (C₁₀H₁₈O) and stirred well to become a phase. Later, 17 g of the melted beeswax (C₁₅H₃₁COOC3₀H₆₁) was added to the liquid paraffin compound. In the end, the aqueous phase was added to the oil phase, and the mixture process immediately began in one direction with a glass stirrer and continued until the product cooled down. Essential oils (EO) was obtained by steam distillation of fresh Thyme and Rose-Acented Geranium in a stainless steel distillation apparatus (alembic) for 3 h. The main components of the essential oils used in the formulation were performed using a Hewlett-Packard GC system interfaced with a mass spectrometer equipped with an HP5-MS capillary column (30 m, 0.32 mm, 0.25 µm film thicknesses). For GC-MS detection, electron ionization with ionization energy of 70 eV was used. To examine the presence of scabies, weekly skin sampling was performed, and the treatment continued until 30 days, when no skin chip of the scabies was noted. The findings revealed that the formulation developed no side effects and removed the daily use, as it could be administered once or twice a week. Also, complete recovery of scabies in all the breeds was found to be less than a month at most. This medicinal formulationcan be easily used without concerns over its side effects or consumption dosages. This study introduced a herbal formulation with effective herbal ingredients without any side effects to treat the sarcoptes and demodex parasites; unlike other chemical compounds, this medicinal formulation has no side effects, while some other formulations could develop side effects.

Keywords: Anti-scabies; Demodex; Essential oils (EO); Formulation; Herbal Medicine; Sarcoptes.

Figure 1

Flowchart of the formulation preparation process

Figure 2

Before the treatment (A) and after the treatment (B) with the ointment produced for the Demodex (Demodicosis) parasite

Figure 3

Before the treatment (A,B) and after the treatment (C) with the ointment produced for the Sarcoptes parasite