Abstract
The current coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak is a significant threat to human health and the worldwide economy. Coronaviruses cause a variety of diseases, such as pneumonia-like upper respiratory tract illnesses, gastroenteritis, encephalitis, multiple organ failure involving lungs and kidneys which might cause death. Since the pandemic started there have been more than 107 million COVID-19 infections caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and ∼2.4 million deaths globally. SARS-CoV-2 is easily transmitted from person-to-person and has spread quickly across all continents. With the continued increase in morbidity and mortality caused by COVID-19, and the damage to the global economy, there is an urgent need for effective prevention and treatment strategies. The advent of safe and effective vaccines has been a significant step forward in the battle against COVID-19, however treatment of the symptoms associated with the disease still requires new anti-viral and anti-inflammatory drug therapies. To this end, scientists have been investigating available natural products that may be effective against SARS-CoV-2, with some products showing promise in fighting several viral infections. Since many natural products are dietary components or are prepared as dietary supplements people tend to consider them safer than synthetic drugs. For example, Traditional Chinese Medicines have been effectively utilized to treat SARS-CoV-2 infected patients with promising results. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge of COVID-19 therapies and the therapeutic potential of medicinal plant extracts and natural compounds for the treatment of several viral infections, with special emphasis on SARS-CoV-2 infection. Realistic strategies that can be employed for the effective use of bioactive compounds for anti-SARS-CoV-2 research are also provided.
Highlights
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that has endangered the whole world and its pandemic is of global public health concern (Rothan and Byrareddy, 2020)
SARS-CoV-2 infection is characterized by sore throat, high fever, chills, cough, breathlessness, severe pneumonia, and death due to multi-organ failure involving kidneys and lungs often leading to death (Coronavirus disease, 2019; WHO Novel Coronavirus–China)
Birds and other mammals suffer from a variety of CoV infections, which are mostly fatal, such as the infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) in poultry, transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV) in pigs and bovine coronavirus (BCoV) in cattle, all associated with huge economic losses(Pyrc et al, 2008)
Summary
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that has endangered the whole world and its pandemic is of global public health concern (Rothan and Byrareddy, 2020). A novel member of the human CoV emerged and is formally named as SARS-CoV2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) (Ludwig and Zarbock, 2020). This unique strain of CoV was previously reported in humans, and is able to cause disease in humans, masked palm civets, mice, dogs, cats, camels, pigs, chickens, and bats. Some specific structural proteins have been identified in the virus that play significant roles in its pathogenesis and development of severe infection These protein molecules are encoded by the SARS-CoV genome and have been identified as possible targets for new anti-CoV agents. A better understanding of these proteins, and other important components of the SARS-CoV, may increase investigations of novel anti-SARS-CoV agents using a targeted approach against these specific proteins
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