Phytocompounds in the management of COVID-19: A review

The rapid spread of coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) has forced the need for the discovery of new antiviral agent or the development of new vaccine to fight against the pandemic disease, COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus-2), owing to its high mortality rate worldwide. Therefore, medicinal plants are gaining much attention for human health for the period of pandemic situation because of the efficient activity, cost effectiveness and limited side effects. These plants or phytochemicals have been used for several decades to treat various emerging virus infections through the inhibiting the various drug targets. Consequently, the current evidence indicating those medicinal plants or herbs and their component have the potent antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2. Therefore, this review summarises the important Indian as well as Chinese medicinal plants and their phytochemicals or extracts which have the potency to battle with SARS-CoV-2 along with deciphered mechanism of action. These medicinal plants served as alternative treatment choice for the treatment of COVID-19 disease during this overwhelming pandemic situation.