Herbal Drugs Against Polio Infections: Ethnopharmacology, Chemistry, and Clinical and Preclinical Studies
摘要
One of the most common viral diseases, polio, is caused by poliovirus, an enterovirus C serotype, belonging to the family of Picornaviridae. It is a positive-stranded RNA virus; the infection majorly occurs through the fecal-oral route. In 95% of the cases, the infection is majorly asymptomatic, and it mainly attacks the central nervous system, thus leading to temporary or permanent paralysis. Although polio has been successfully eradicated from India, the World Health Organization (WHO) has taken major initiatives to eradicate the disease from the world. Herbal medicines and extracts isolated from medicinal plants are promising products to be considered as potent candidate drugs. Herbal drugs are a combined outcome of pharmacognosy, ethnopharmacology, phytochemistry, and botany. After successful clinical trials, these herbal drugs can be implemented in infected patients to estimate its efficacy.