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Review
. 2022 Feb;29(7):9592-9605.
doi: 10.1007/s11356-021-17643-8. Epub 2022 Jan 7.

COVID-19 pandemic: impacts on bees, beekeeping, and potential role of bee products as antiviral agents and immune enhancers

Youssef A Attia  1   2   3 , Gianpaolo M Giorgio  4 , Nicola F Addeo  4 , Khalid A Asiry  5 , Giovanni Piccolo  4 , Antonino Nizza  6 , Carmelo Di Meo  4 , Naimah A Alanazi  7 , Adel D Al-Qurashi  5 , Mohamed E Abd El-Hack  8 , Asmaa F Khafaga  9 , Fulvia Bovera  10
Affiliations
Review

COVID-19 pandemic: impacts on bees, beekeeping, and potential role of bee products as antiviral agents and immune enhancers

Youssef A Attia et al. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2022 Feb.

Erratum in

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic has passed to the front all the contradictions of the beekeeping sector: the valuable role of bee products as immune enhancers and antiviral agents and the impact that unsustainability of human activities has on bees' health and survival. The COVID-19 emergency led several countries to adopt severe restriction measures to contrast the infection. The lowering of industrial and commercial activities, transports, and the general lockdown had immediate consequences on the air quality, significantly improving environmental conditions. This had a positive impact on honeybees' life's quality. On the other hand, the bee and beehive transportation limitations threaten to hit food production by affecting the pollinator service, and this is particularly true in large, food-exporting countries like the USA and China where due to the few numbers of local bees, beekeepers import them by other countries and convey by truck hives for thousands of kilometers to pollinate crops. Furthermore, honeybee products, focusing on their natural pharmacological properties, can play an essential role as a potential natural contrast to the virus by enhancing the immunity defenses of both humans and animals, and their demand by consumers is expected to increase. Several researchers in the last months focused their attention on bee products to evaluate their effect in the cure of COVID-19 patients to ameliorate the symptoms or to contrast the coronavirus directly. This review reports these preliminary results.

Keywords: Antiviral activity; Bee products; Beekeeping; COVID-19 pandemic; Honeybees; Immune enhancer.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Number of beehives in the world from 2010 to 2019 in millions
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Schematic illustration for the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on bees
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
The potential impacts of bee products against the novel coronavirus (SARS‐CoV‐2)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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