COVID-19 and therapy with essential oils having antiviral, anti-inflammatory, and immunomodulatory properties
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Inflammopharmacology
REVIEW
COVID‑19 and therapy with essential oils having antiviral, anti‑inflammatory, and immunomodulatory properties Muhammad Asif1 · Mohammad Saleem2 · Malik Saadullah3 · Hafiza Sidra Yaseen3 · Raghdaa Al Zarzour4 Received: 19 June 2020 / Accepted: 31 July 2020 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) has emerged as a global health threat. Unfortunately, there are very limited approved drugs available with established efficacy against the SARs-CoV-2 virus and its inflammatory complications. Vaccine development is actively being researched, but it may take over a year to become available to general public. Certain medications, for example, dexamethasone, antimalarials (chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine), antiviral (remdesivir), and IL-6 receptor blocking monoclonal antibodies (tocilizumab), are used in various combinations as off-label medications to treat COVID-19. Essential oils (EOs) have long been known to have anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, bronchodilatory, and antiviral properties and are being proposed to have activity against SARC-CoV-2 virus. Owing to their lipophilic nature, EOs are advocated to penetrate viral membranes easily leading to membrane disruption. Moreover, EOs contain multiple active phytochemicals that can act synergistically on multiple stages of viral replication and also induce positive effects on host respiratory system including bronchodilation and mucus lysis. At present, only computer-aided docking and few in vitro studies are available which show anti-SARC-CoV-2 activities of EOs. In this review, role of EOs in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 is discussed. A discussion on possible side effects associated with EOs as well as anti-corona virus claims made by EOs manufacturers are also highlighted. Based on the current knowledge a chemo-herbal (EOs) combination of the drugs could be a more feasible and effective approach to combat this viral pandemic.
Keywords Essential oils · SARC-CoV-2 · Immunomodulatory · Docking studies
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Introduction The 2019 severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has emerged as a new respiratory pathogen and is responsible for large-scale morbidities and mortalities around the globe. It is caused by a single positivestranded RNA virus from the coronavirus (CoV) family of Coronaviridae (Ludwig and Zarbock 2020). This family is composed of four genera out of which α- and β-CoV can infect mammals including humans (Ludwig and Zarbock 2020). These two strains are reported to be originated from Rousettus leschenaultia, i.e. a bat species (Lau et al. 2010; Valencia 2020). SARS-CoV-2 is identified as β-CoV (Valencia 2020) and is responsible for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). These viruses are wrapped in host cellsderived lipid membranes in which viral surface proteins are embedded. One of these surface proteins known as spike [S] protein protrudes out of membranes an
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