Herbal Remedies: An Emerging Alternative for the Treatment of Pandemic Diseases

Abstract

Pandemics are large-scale epidemics of infectious illness that may cause major economical, cultural, and political upheaval while also increasing illness and mortality across a huge geographic area. Evidence shows that pandemics have increased during the last century as a result of increasing international travel and connectivity, industrialization, agricultural expansion, and higher destruction of the natural environment. Over time, emerging pathogen strains cause pandemics that raise suffering, death, and instability in countries. Flu, plague, cholera, HIV, and the current COVID-19 pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus are just a few of the pathogen outbreaks. Unfortunately, given the lack of information and instruments to tackle the problem, managing new and developing infections is frequently challenging. Yet, the use of herbal remedies to treat new and developing infectious illnesses has received much interest. Until the invention of antibiotics, herbal plants, their preparations, and extracted phytoconstituents were reported to be efficient in reducing infectious diseases. Plants contain numerous complex metabolites, such as amino acids, alkaloids, tannins, flavonoids, terpenoids, and glycosides, that show different therapeutic activities. This review provides vital and useful information regarding herbal drugs and their effectiveness against various pathogens that cause major pandemics.