Efficacy and mechanisms of Traditional Chinese Medicine prevention and treatment for respiratory viruses

Respiratory virus infection was the most common viral infection in clinical practice with the greatest impact, including the Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), posing a huge threat to the world's public health and human life safety. Commonly used antiviral drugs have obvious side effects and a narrow scope of application. Respiratory viruses are susceptible to infection, mutation, and prevalence, which also pose challenges to traditional antiviral drugs and vaccine development. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has a long history of treating infectious diseases, with many herbs and compounds. Its multi-component, multi-target and multi-path characteristics have made it have great advantages and potential in the development of new anti-respiratory virus drugs. This review summarized TCM for the prevention and treatment of common respiratory viruses, and provided new strategies for the research and development of new TCM antiviral drugs and for responding to infectious respiratory virus diseases.