Efficacy of Herbal Medicines as Remedies against COVID-19

Abstract

Objective: Coronaviruses belong to the order Nidovirales, family Coronaviridae, and four genera, namely: alpha, beta, gamma, and delta. In December 2019, a novel coronavirus was first officially reported in Wuhan City of China. Consequently, on February 11, 2020, the CSG named the virus severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2); it causes the disease dubbed Covid-19. The virus was officially declared pandemic by WHO, on March 11, 2020. Up till date, no drug, including the existing ones, has been approved for covid-19 treatment. The objective of this work, is to carry out a review on proven herbal extracts and the phyto-compound contents, for possible antiviral properties against SARS-CoV-2, and thus, as potential candidates for Covid-19 vaccine. Materials and Methods: Investigation into proven plant species against respiratory tract diseases was carried out between 1st to 30th of July, 2020 via: (a) Conduction of interview with traditional herbal healers and users, in south-western Nigeria on efficacies and history of use of identified plant species; (b) Search to confirm active phyto-compounds in the traditionally identified plant species via: (i). the free ELSEVIER repositories at the ‘COVID-19 RESOURCE CENTRE’ hosted on ELSEVIER Connect. (ii). Unrestricted resources in the PubMed domain. (iii). Unrestricted publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID-19 database. Results: Findings revealed herbal extracts of: (i). Zingiber officinale, (ii). Psidium guayava, (iii). Nigella sativa, and (iv). Hibiscus sabdariffa; are highly rich in phyto-compounds with potent antiviral properties, and therefore suit as a potential remedy against Covid-19. Conclusion: Identified plant species possess phyto-compounds with antiviral activities, thus projecting them as potential candidates for development of Covi-19 vaccine.