Classical homeopathy is a viable treatment option for the common arbovirus infection Ross River virus (RRV), as it can support a person’s bodily systems and alleviate or mitigate their presenting symptoms. When prescribed successfully, homeopathic treatment has the potential to reduce the burden that RRV infection places on Australian society. It would be highly beneficial for more studies to be done on the homeopathic treatment of patients with RRV.
Keywords: Ross River virus, arbovirus, Australia, anaemia, individualised, classical homeopathy.
Introduction
In Australia, Ross River virus (RRV) is a notifiable disease that has the potential to cause polyarthritis and substantial morbidity, making it a significant cost to the Australian healthcare system [1]. Even though RRV is the most common mosquito-borne disease in Australia [2], treatment options remain limited to simple analgesics or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs [1]. The conventional medications commonly prescribed help patients cope with the symptoms, but do not shorten their duration.
Unlike Chikungunya [3] and Dengue Fever [4], for which homeopathy has been investigated as a successful alternative approach, there has been little published evidence demonstrating the benefits of homeopathic treatment for RRV.
The following case report is testament that individualised homeopathy can alleviate the symptoms of recurrent RRV and concomitant anaemia, whilst also impacting the emotional body positively.
The pillars of classical homeopathy are the Law of Similars and the Law of Minimum dose, and the prescription in this case was made according to these principals. Through repertorisation (see figures 1.1 and 1.2) and careful examination, the remedy and potency were selected specifically for the patient. Progress was then monitored for five years (see figure 2). No other homeopathic protocols or non-classical prescriptions were employed. No further conventional medication was used either.
Typical symptoms of RRV include (in any sequence) rash, fever, arthralgia myalgia lymphadenopathy, sore throat and coryza, fatigue and malaise, and/or anxiety and depression [5]. According to much of the scientific literature on the subject, including research by Harley [6], all measures of disease severity return to normal by eight months from onset, and in many cases even less.
Though this work is now outdated, these studies [5. 6] essentially disregarded earlier research that outlined experiences of RRV lasting for years, with Harley et al. [5] stating that previous studies ‘lacked clinical review, did not exclude alternative diagnoses, and had no control groups.’
Upon listening to various patients’ stories, there certainly seems to be sufficient anecdotal evidence to challenge this notion of RRV being a short-lived experience. In some cases, it can take years to overcome the initial arbovirus infection, with people reporting recurrence of symptoms up to ten years afterwards.
Unfortunately, this is not usually recognised as a potential relapse of RRV, and some sufferers are relating that it is difficult to get answers from the conventional medical establishment. This opens a door for homeopathy to support people in their recovery and warrants further investigation.
In the following case it may have been an insidious infection that lasted for many years, but there is also a likelihood that the patient was dealing with recurrence from fresh infection multiple times. Certainly, during the last three years of the homeopathic follow up, there was virtually no possibility of re-infection from new mosquito bites, coupled with an absence of any of the original symptoms; yet RRV antibodies persisted in the patient’s laboratory results. At the same time, his blood tests that initially exposed deficiency in haematinics despite taking iron supplements showed resolution of the concomitant anaemia after the homeopathic intervention.
Case report as per initial consultation
The patient, born in 1952, was first diagnosed with Ross River fever fifteen years prior to the initial consultation, in 2005. During that time, he was very sick for a few days, with vomiting and fever. Once the fever broke, he ‘picked up’, but had aches and pains for six months. The RRV symptoms recurred in 2006, 2008, 2011 and then again in 2020, which was when he sought homeopathic treatment.
During the 2020 flare up, the same thing happened as the episode fifteen years earlier. However, this time it was slower to come on and much more severe. It started after he was exerting himself carrying heavy buckets and began with sore leg and arm muscles.
He was very tired and generally overworked, and was experiencing exhaustion, vomiting and nausea. He said during this time, ‘it felt like it was Ross River again’, and this feeling was confirmed by blood tests (see figure 3.1). Tests also demonstrated depleted iron stores (see figure 4). He explained that in 2016 and 2017 his blood test results had also shown RRV present and past even though he had no symptoms during that time.
After the most recent confirmatory diagnosis, things got progressively worse. He got more tests done, yet all were negative except for Ross River virus. He was in so much pain… The aspirin that he took before bed would get him through to 2 am, after which he would take more. The medical doctors’ solution was to give more paracetamol-based painkillers.
His primary concern during the case taking was his leg muscles: They could only carry him so much, then he would ‘flop’. He also couldn’t lift his arms above his head. It was difficult to get back up from sitting or lying down. During this time, he was only able to take little steps.
It hurt to move. His legs felt weak, had no strength and as though they would to give way, and he was experiencing a dull pain from his feet right up into the buttocks. A similar issue was happening with his arms. Inflammation was noted in both shoulders, forearms, as well as legs, plus the back of his hands were so swollen he could hardly close his hands.
The right hand was slightly worse than left. If he reached his arms out in front of him, the muscles would start aching, felt like it was pulling, and the pain was akin to a dog bite. He had to use two hands to drink a glass of water.
The inflammatory symptoms were worse in the morning: From 2 am to daylight he couldn’t move without pain. An aggravation continued until about 10/11 am. The afternoons were generally better, with less pain and more movement in the afternoon and early evening.
His iron levels remained low, and he thought that he must be losing blood, so he wanted to test his colon and stomach – a stool sample showed no bowel bleeding and no other infections. He had dewormed himself recently to be sure that wasn’t an issue either.
He went to a naturopath to do a blood analysis. It showed his red blood cells were small, some shaped like jellybeans, and were unable to carry oxygen. At the last visit to the doctor his ferritin went from 14 to 28 (see figure 4), which he attributes to taking more iron tablets – 80mg Ferro-Tab.
General physical state:
The patient was suffering with the heat, tending to feel cool in the evenings. He would sleep with a T-shirt, sometimes with a blanket. He would wake every two hours, either from needing to urinate or from pain in the shoulders. He felt pain on the side he was sleeping on, so would switch sides during sleep.
He had lost a lot of muscle, and in its place was flabby skin. His muscles felt out of place and there had been falling of leg hairs and dry skin. Since increasing his iron intake and with his dietary improvements he was picking up, just not enough.
He used to be vegetarian, but his naturopath said he must instead eat meat, along with vegetables, and avoid sugar. He switched to xylitol as a sweetener, but it was causing diarrhea. He used to like sweets but became unable to handle too much sweet.
He would resist unhealthy food and choose vegetables, meat and fruit, avoiding wheat and too much grain. He liked a bit of salt but had been limiting it as his blood pressure had been getting higher. He would easily choose fruit over something like a biscuit.
He loved mangoes, dragonfruit, berries (sweet), pawpaw, pears, nectarines and passionfruit. Regarding meat, he would eat pork, chicken and fish mostly. He had started eating kangaroo but did not like other red meat.
He would drink coffee because without it he would have withdrawals – just half a teaspoon with a bit in cacao each morning. He would drink quite a bit of water, preferred it at room temperature unless it was a really hot day, would drink it fast and have three to four cups of herbal tea per day.
He had an aversion to milk; in his coffee he would have condensed milk. He liked cream, butter and cheeses but tried to restrict these. When he was at his worst he was ‘off’ cheese as it was too much fat for his liver, but since stopping alcohol and taking liver herbs, he liked it again: his body was turning him off it while his liver was struggling.
Mental and emotional symptoms:
The patient had been tending towards depression the last six months or so, as the weakness from the RRV infection had really got him down and into a state of despair. He had always been very active, so it really affected him not being able to do much. During this time, due to COVID-19 restrictions, they couldn’t get back to where they lived – being locked out caused anxiety and anger.
He also felt negativity towards his medical doctor and specifically anger towards them because of their inaction. He was normally not an angry person. He had a fear of small spaces. He loved it when it rained, but after two weeks of no sun he would become depressed. He liked moisture.
For forty-two years the patient had owned a heavily rainforested property in a far northern part of rural Australia. After he and his wife moved closer to town, he had been going backwards and forwards to the property in order to maintain it. The move away ‘had really pulled on his heartstrings’.
He said the property ‘is their Motherland’, they put their heart and soul into it, so it was really hard to leave. He had tried for his children to take it over, to keep it in the family, but none of those plans had worked.
It was after they had spent a few weeks working on the property (not too hard, as they weren’t going to sell it) that he came down with the Ross River virus flare up. It felt good to take the property off the market, as they couldn’t look after it to get it to the point of selling it.
Whilst they did want to eventually put it back on the market, being a La Niña year, one would have needed a four-wheel drive vehicle to get there as there was a very steep hill to get to the house, so essentially they were ‘lumbered’ with looking after it for six months, and he felt it was a weight on his shoulders. Despite this, he had a great emotional attachment to the land.
Personal and family medical history:
Over the course of his life, the patient had undergone suppressive treatments for ‘a couple of things’, but it had been many years since he had taken antibiotics. Instead, he would use garlic when necessary. He had received a vaccine for rabies (after being scratched by a bat) six years prior. He had no reactions to this except for a fat hand for a few days.
He had been to hospital twice in his life – when he was born and when he was age forty. In 1992 he went through a hard time: he got chronic fatigue, his body started breaking down, he had haemorrhoids, a testicular lump (the size of the top of pencil, on the left-side), and an impacted wisdom tooth. The hospital took the lump off – it was benign.
The patient had measles as a child. He had a very bad cold thirty-five years ago, at which time he had so much fluid on his lungs he couldn’t lie down to sleep. He used garlic to overcome this. He had also used various alternative healing methods: Lester cocks, herbal medicine and nutritional therapies. More recently, he woke up one morning with a cough and produced yellow phlegm – he had this for two to three weeks. He overcame this with garlic and aspirin.
He sometimes got a tingling sensation in his feet and hands after Lester cocks’ treatments. Years ago, he had some numbness in his extremities and when went to the medical doctor the diagnosis was B12 deficiency. At that time, he didn’t want to eat animals, so was told to supplement: he had the occasional B12 injection and then went onto take a sublingual B12 supplement.
His mother suffered from heart and lung failure. She smoked all her life, had pain free heart attacks and died in 1996 – this was not traumatic for the patient, ‘just different’. His father died of a heart attack when the patient was just twelve years old. He died in front of him on the kitchen floor on Christmas day.
This event left the patient ‘bereft’, and he had a hard time for years due to this trauma. He went on to have a ‘spiritual awakening with a spiritual teacher’, where he worked through his emotional pain and childhood traumas, ‘faced all of those things and worked through them’.
Homeopathic perspective and intervention
The main physical feature of the case was the extreme weakness. I concluded that the underlying emotion of the case was the grief associated with the departure from his Motherland. Therefore, I closely examined the remedies that have ‘homesickness’ in their pictures, such as Phosphoric acid and Carbo animalis. I used both Radar Opus and Vithoulkas Expert System (VES) to analyse the rubrics (see figures 1.1 and 1.2).
Figure 1.1: Repertorisation via Radar Opus
Figure 1.2: Repertorisation using the Radar Opus VES analysis
I estimated the patient’s Level of Health as Group A Level 3 due to the number and mildness of acute illnesses. There had been very little suppression and chronic disease in this case, and a high degree of healthy living. Due to the high level of health together with the clarity of the remedy picture, the patient would have been entitled to receive a high potency.
However, Professor Vithoulkas advises not to use potencies above 200c in most older patients, for example over seventy years of age [7]. In this case, despite the overall high level of health and healthy diet and lifestyle, the organism was in such a fragile state that a low to medium potency needed to be given.
Phosphoric acid 30c was prescribed for the post-fever weakness, prostration and anaemic state. It was also indicated for the accompanying grief and melancholy. One dose only was taken.
Case report as per follow up consultations
Figure 2: Table detailing remedy reaction and subsequent prescription
| Time passed since 1 dose of Phosphoric acid 30c | Progression of symptoms | Prescription |
| 1 month | He still had some pain, but it was not through the entire body.
He was sleeping well and had reduced his painkillers by 75%. He had regained his strength, could walk freely and lift his arms above his head. His hands were still swollen, stiff, sore and tingling and he still had trouble opening jars (positive direction of cure). His hair started falling out. |
Wait |
| 4 months | The patient advised that he was able to walk up to the waterfall at his property (no easy feat, see figure 5) and had begun preparations to sell.
He no longer needed painkillers – had stopped them 2 months prior. |
Wait |
| 6 months | He was no longer losing hair.
His memory seemed to have improved in that he remembered dates and details quicker and with much more ease. He could open jars and sit on the toilet seat. He still had a little bit of stiffness and pain in the knuckles and the palms of the hands. Up until recently he couldn’t kneel or squat, but he could do those things again. He was 90-95% better. The last blood test showed his ferritin was up to 40. His iron levels had been low for 3 years despite taking iron tablets. Since the homoeopathic treatment, his levels were the highest they had ever been (see figure 4). |
Wait |
| 9 months | The patient had sold his ‘Motherland’ for a good profit. Even though he had the option to pass it down to his daughter and keep it in the family, he had completely made peace and was letting go.
He was tired from all the preparations involved with selling, but he had managed to get through the work with relative ease. |
Wait |
| 1 year | A relapse of symptoms (namely weakness and melancholy) had been observed. | Phosphoric acid 30c repeated |
| 5 years | Currently, the patient is very well and fit. | No remedy given |
Figure 3.1: Laboratory results RRV infection (2020)
Figure 3.2: Laboratory results RRV infection (2025)
Figure 4: Laboratory results anaemia (2021)
Figure 5: The hike from the patient’s house to his waterfall
Discussion
Phosphoric acid was a very well-matched remedy for this patient. Although not a remedy that is explicitly documented in cases of RRV, being the simillimum, it worked to alleviate all RRV symptoms, anaemia and the pathology in the emotional body. Perhaps if the remedy was given in a higher potency (such as a 200c) it would not have needed to be repeated at all; however, 30c was a good potency for this person at that time.
Once the patient had fully recovered, I had to consider any further treatment that may be necessary, especially as his test results remained positive for RRV immunoglobulin M antibodies (figure 3.2). It had been published in our national homeopathic journal Similia in cases of RRV to ‘give Ross River virus 30c in three doses (night, morning, night), when it appeared that the client had reached 100% wellbeing’ [8].There needs to be more clinical evidence to support this course of action.
Immunoglobulin M antibodies (IgM) are the first class of antibodies produced during a primary immune response [9]. Being the first type of antibodies generated during an infection, IgM are a marker of an acute phase, and as such they are expected to decrease over time as the immune system gets the infection under control [10].
With regards to RRV, it has been observed that ‘IgM can persist for months to years after infection’ [1]. In this particular case, the patient had presented with positive RRV IgM antibodies consistently over the span of twenty years. Living on the coast in a ‘hot spot’ during most of that time, there could have potentially been more than one infective mosquito bite and therefore recovery followed by reinfection.
However, following this most recent recovery the patient moved inland where mosquitos are far scarcer and RRV is practically unheard of. Therefore, for approximately three years of close to zero chance of him being bitten and reinfected, and five years since symptom onset, his RRV IgM remained positive. This patient could indeed be an excellent candidate for examining the effect of the RRV nosode on persistent RRV IgM, especially considering there is little to no symptomatology to necessitate a new homeopathic prescription.
The biggest factor challenging the veracity of this case is that the disease in question is self-limiting and in the past the patient recovered from the RRV symptoms without homeopathic intervention. However, the relapse that came prior to the homeopathic treatment was the worst he had experienced and was not resolving in the way it had previously.
We also have laboratory confirmation that his iron levels, which had been low for years despite taking iron supplements, were the highest they had ever been, and this could only be due to the Phosphoric acid 30c. Therefore, it can be affirmed that his recovery was very well supported by classical homeopathy. By considering underlying emotional symptoms as well as the physical components associated with the illness, the patient was able to recover from the RRV infection and concomitant anaemia as well as make positive major life changes.
Conclusion
Individualised homeopathic treatment was shown here to assist in the amelioration of symptoms due to recurring and persistent infection with Ross River virus. This case also demonstrates how minimum dosing with the correct homeopathic remedy can have an impact on the emotional and physical planes simultaneously.
The alleviated physical symptoms included weakness, pain and anaemia. This improvement was observed in the laboratory results, specifically the ferritin levels despite the cessation of iron supplementation. More studies done on the homeopathic treatment of patients with RRV would assist practitioners on how best to proceed with case management as well as potentially informing governmental healthcare advice.
References
[1] Barber, B., Spelman, D. & Denholm, J.T. 2009. Ross River virus. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. www.racgp.org.au/afp/2009/august/ross-river-virus
[2] Liu, X., Tharmarajah, K. & Taylor, A. 2017. Ross River virus disease clinical presentation, pathogenesis and current therapeutic strategies. www.pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28754345/
[3] Wadhwani GG. 2013. Homeopathic drug therapy. Homeopathy in Chikungunya Fever and Post-Chikungunya Chronic Arthritis: an observational study. www.pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23870379/
[4] Mahesh, S., Mahesh, M. & Vithoulkas, G. 2018. Could Homeopathy Become An Alternative Therapy In Dengue Fever? An example Of 10 Case Studies. www.pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29696069/
[5] Harley, D., Sleigh, A. & Ritchie, S. 2001. Ross River Virus Transmission, Infection, and Disease: a Cross-Disciplinary Review. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC89008/
[6] Harley, D. 2000. Ross River virus: ecology, natural history of disease and epidemiology in tropical Queensland. PhD Thesis, Australian Centre for International and Tropical Health and Nutrition, The University of Queensland. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:157871
[7] IACH E-learning course. www.vithoulkas.com/education/e-learning-program-classical-homeopathy/
[8] Hynson, I. 2024. Similia similibus curantur: mosquito borne viruses and the homoeopathic remedies used in their treatment. Similia The Australian Journal of Homoeopathic Medicine volume 37.
[9] Boes, M. 2000. Role of natural and immune IgM antibodies in immune responses. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0161589001000256
[10] Lemos, M. 2024. IgG vs IgM: Difference, When They’re Ordered & Results. www.tuasaude.com/en/igg-vs-igm/
