Amid the SARS‐CoV‐2 pandemic, herbal medicines have received much attention in its evidence-based therapeutics. Scientists across the globe are integrating new research at an unprecedented fast pace for the discovery of novel molecules against this deadly viral disease. Ever since ancient times, phytochemicals have long been used traditionally for the cure of many viral diseases and lately many are being tested for their potential against the viral replications/transcriptions. The unmatched structural diversity of phytoconstituents may prove to be a gold mine for antiviral drug discovery. Many plants like Heteromorpha spp ., Bupleurum spp , Scrophularia scorodonia , Artemisia annua , Pyrrosia lingua , Lycoris radiate , and Lindera agregata have also been reported to have antiviral potential against SARS-CoV. Recently many synthetic molecules like remdesivir, tocilizumab, favipirapir, dexamethasone, glucocorticoid, and hydroxychloroquine etc. have been extensively investigated for their potential against the SARS‐CoV‐2, likewise, various plant-based molecules such as scutellarein, silvestrol, tryptanthrin, saikosaponin B2, quercetin, myricetin, caffeic acid, psoralidin, isobavachalcone, and lectins-griffiths in were also found to be equally effective. Needless to mention that, the herbal medicines are a valuable and powerful source of chemical compounds which need further chemical modifications and appropriate in-vitro and in-vivo testings for establishing their safety and efficacy as potential drugs against the battle with coronavirus pandemic. In this review, we will try to highlight the potential phytochemicals candidates with their possible molecular targets against the SARS‐CoV‐2and demystify the myths behind the purported remedies such as herbal therapies, teas, essential oils, tinctures, and silver products such as colloidal silver that have no scientific evidence to prevent or cure COVID-19. Apart from that, this review will also de-fabricate the surgency of objectionable claims that are continuously reckoning towards the treatment of COVID-19 with hundred per cent surety and are propagated by several herbal firms.
Content
Author and article information
Journal
Title:
ScienceOpen Preprints
Publisher:
ScienceOpen
Publication date
(Electronic preprint):
19
November
2020
Affiliations
[1
] Dept. of Pharm. Sci. & Tech., Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, 400019, Maharashtra,
India
[2
] Dept. of Commerce, Jamia Millia Islamia, Jamia Nagar, Okhla, New Delhi, Delhi 110025,
India
Article
DOI: 10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-.PPXFIF7.v2
SO-VID: da72c9ed-df82-44e0-8992-93ee9a89ce1c
License:
This work has been published open access under Creative Commons Attribution License
CC BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly cited. Conditions, terms of use and publishing policy
can be found at
www.scienceopen.com.
History
Date
received
: 17
November
2020
Data availability: Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.