The Effect of Phytocompounds of Medicinal Plants on Coronavirus (2019-NCOV) Infection

The recent outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a respiratory infection and it can spread from animal to person, person to person through coughing or physical contact. Recent studies revealed that the genome sequence of this pandemic disease is very similar to that of SARS-CoV, thus, there are not yet effective treatments that target the 2019-nCoV virus. Medicinal plants present a potential solution to resolve the drug problem. In fact, the bioactive compounds such as phenols, flavonoids, monoterpenes, and phenylpropanoids, derived from several herbs such as Eucalyptus globulus, Mentha spicata, Nigella sativa, Rosmarinus officinalis, Thymus capitatus and Zingiber officinale could be used to develop formal drugs against several diseases with no or minimal side effects. In this paper, we describe the potential antiviral properties of several medicinal plants against Coronaviridae family viruses such as SARS, MERS, and IBV. Besides, we review various species of medicinal herbs and their derived phytochemical compounds in terms of their immunomodulatory bioactivities and antiviral activity.