Role of Herbal Formulations in Antiviral Therapy - an Overview

The incidence and prevalence of various viral infections have risen tremendously and remain a life-threatening risk to people over the past century. Viral outbreaks and reemerging of viral infection are constantly challenging the global healthcare system. To combat crises, vaccines, antibiotics, and broad-spectrum antiviral agents are used and have often shown limited efficacy with unsatisfactory clinical outcomes. The world is looking for a promising alternative medicine that will be more effective with high safety profile. Traditional medicine gained much interest recently with the increase in people’s usage after the recent outbreak of COVID-19. In the current chapter, we have tried to cover the role of herbal drugs and their respective formulations in treating various viral diseases. A brief introduction to viral classification, epidemiology, and types of viral infections was provided to understand the topic and its relevance better. Various plant-based materials, including extracts and pure active constituents that are studied by multiple researchers in treating different viral infections, were reported. A discussion on the antiviral formulations currently under various phases of clinical trials, e.g., Kovir, Xagrotin, COVIDEX™, Septilin®, and Sho-Saiko-to (SST) and patents related to herbal antiviral molecules were also discussed with their merits. A comprehensive list of antiviral medications was given for the readers’ reference. Finally, the regulatory guidelines related to herbal products and regulatory bodies of India and other countries were enlisted for the complete understanding of the research stage to the marketing of herbal systems with particular emphasis on viral therapy.