Natural Plant Products: A Less Focused Aspect for the COVID-19 Viral Outbreak

Abstract

The sudden emergence of COVID-19 caused by a novel coronavirus (nCoV) led the entire world to search for relevant solutions to fight the pandemic. Although continuous trials are being conducted to develop precise vaccines and therapeutic antibodies, a potential remedy is yet to be developed. Plants have largely contributed to the treatment of several human diseases and different phytoconstituents have been previously described to impede the replication of numerous viruses. Despite the previous positive reports of plant-based medications, no successful clinical trials of phyto-anti-COVID drugs could be conducted to date. In this article, we discuss varying perspectives on why phyto-anti-viral drug clinical trials were not successful in the case of COVID-19. The issue has been discussed in light of the usage of plant-based therapeutics in previous coronavirus outbreaks. Through this article, we aim to identify the disadvantages in this research area and suggest some measures to ensure that phytoconstituents can efficiently contribute to future random viral outbreaks. It is emphasized that if used strategically phyto-inhibitors with pre-established clinical data for other diseases can save the time required for long clinical trials. The scientific community should competently tap into phytoconstituents and take their research up to the final stage of clinical trials so that potential phyto-anti-COVID drugs can be developed.

Keywords: clinical trials; coronavirus; coronavirus disease of 2019; molecular docking; natural compounds; phytoconstituents; severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.

Figure 1

This picture shows the current status of phytoconstituents in the development process of anti-COVID-19 drugs. Due to the identified mutations in SARS-CoV-2 as compared to SARS-CoV, the detection of potent anti-viral compounds is necessary. Molecular docking can largely contribute to this process. The phytocompounds (A) that are identified as potential inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 should be immediately forwarded to pre-clinical and clinical trials (Aanouz et al., 2020; Khaerunnisa et al., 2020; Ul Qamar et al., 2020). The phytocompounds (B) that were effective against SARS-CoV and are potent for SARS-CoV-2 based on in vitro experiments saved the time of target compound selection and extraction assays (Nemunaitis et al., 2013; Choy et al., 2020). As their efficacy and safety has already been proven in previous the SARS-CoV outbreak, these can be directly taken to advanced stages in COVID-19 clinical trials. The phytocompounds (C) that are approved for clinical trials or are currently in the process of clinical trials (D) should be taken forward to phase IV as soon as possible so that the wide effect of the developed drugs can be observed before the COVID-19 pandemic ends (Borba et al., 2020; Gautret et al., 2020; Qiu et al., 2020). This is extremely critical for future random viral corona outbreaks.