Medicinal Plants Used in East Africa with Potential Against COVID-19 Infection; A Mechanistic Approach

Abstract

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first reported in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 and was quickly escalated into a global pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2020. Subsequently, concerted efforts were directed towards designing therapies and developing vaccines. To date, safety and efficacy concerns still linger. Evidence suggests that in Traditional African Medicine, there have been encounters with patients treated for COVID-19-like symptoms, and there are substantial claims of clinical efficacy. Such claims, coupled with the immense global disease burden attributed to the disease, have increased the prominence of plant-derived biomolecules in the search for potential therapeutic agents against SARS-CoV-2. Medicinal plants used in East Africa for COVID-like ailments have primarily been subjected to in vitro and in-silico studies. Such studies tend to reveal the mechanistic pathways upon which activity is achieved, and this is the fundamental basis of this review. We therefore uncover potentially useful plants and their active phytoconstituents, as well as identify their proposed therapeutic targets both on susceptible host cells and on the virus. Despite the downgrading of COVID-19 to an endemic disease, the virus continues to mutate, and long-term adverse effects like Long-COVID continue to impact public health. Therefore, the findings from this review can form the basis for further clinical investigation on the identified medicinal plants used in East Africa. As such, a number may find application in preventive medicine or as a safe
and efficacious standalone or adjuvant treatments for coronaviruses in the future.