The potential of South African medicinal plants for the treatment of COVID-19

Abstract

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), currently the cause of coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19), has been declared a pandemic. Currently, not many antiviral treatments are available to effectively treat COVID-19 and therefore ongoing waves of increasing infection numbers and deaths have been reported globally. The current repurposing of drugs has been investigated as possible treatment by researchers and includes remdesivir and ivermectin. Many natural products have been selected and investigated for their potential inhibitory activity against SARSCoV- 2, especially those that have previously been identified to have inhibitory activity against SARS-CoV. There are several genetic similarities between SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV, such as their similarities in the genome, the main protease crystal structure and the primary host receptor (Kaur et al., 2021).