Chapter 10 - Validation of antiviral potential of herbal ethnomedicine

Abstract

Natural products, along with food, clothes, and shelter, serve as the basis of treatment since the dawn of human civilization; while the modern medicine has developed over the years by observational and scientific efforts from ancient traditions. Impressive array of bioactivities with minimum or no toxicity was reported with diverse botanicals against several chronic and difficult-to-treat diseases when most synthetic drugs showed unacceptable side effects. A whole range of viral diseases including Dengue, Ebola, drug-resistant Herpes, HIV/AIDS, Japanese Encephalitis, Rabies, SARS, and recent pandemic of SARS Coronavirus-2 need effective prophylactic or therapeutic agents. Considerable research carried out for last few decades on the Pharmacognosy, chemistry; pharmacology and therapeutics of traditionally used medicines of diverse cultures forced most pharmaceutical companies to renew their strategies of drug discovery, from ‘synthetic to green chemistry’, against different stages of virus infection cycle or host-virus interaction where no effective vaccine or drugs exist. Thus, plants or phytochemicals having potentials of preventing or inhibiting viral infection cycle need to studied in-depth with the purity, safely and potency including their standardization, isolation, efficacy, mechanism of action, along with adverse effect on the host to reduce the time and cost of drug discovery. This updated review will portray the in-depth scientific knowledge and steps for the development of nature-based solutions against genetically and functionally diverse viral diseases from age-old traditional medicines.