Traditional Medicinal Plants to Strengthen Immunity during COVID- 19: A Ray of Hope

Mahrukh Malik, Kanwal Batool and Muhammad Syeda Aaliya Shehzadi
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Mahrukh Malik: Corresponding Author, Drugs Control and Traditional Medicines Division, National Institute of Health, Islamabad, Pakistan
Kanwal Batool: Quality Assurance Department, National Institute of Health, Islamabad, Pakistan
Muhammad Syeda Aaliya Shehzadi: Sulaiman Bin Abdullah Aba Al-Khail-Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Basic Sciences (SA-CIRBS), International Islamic University-44000 Islamabad, Pakistan

Bulletin of Business and Economics (BBE), 2025, vol. 13, issue 4, 20-26

Abstract: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV- 2). Symptoms include cough, fever, shortness of breath, pneumonia,muscle pain and multi organ failure. Via respiratory droplets the infection spreads from one person to another. For the prevention of COVID-19 alternative medicine home remedies using traditional medicinal plants, are being recommended. The aim of this systematic scoping research survey was to focus attention to have a research policy to identify, and summarize the scientific evidences promoting the use of traditional medicinal plants for the treatment of COVID-19 and for boosting immune system. By systematic planning, reduce use of high cost treatment to these low cost remedies. A comprehensive research survey was performed in two phases: phase 1 (qualitative phase) for development of a questionnaire and phase 2 (quantitative phase) for validation of the questionnaire. In addition, freewheeling searches of government health ministries and government websites was done to gain the available information. Records available until March 20, 2021 were considered. Results were summarized for prevention or treatment of COVID-19 patients in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Screening (primary and secondary) of the records and data extraction from the eligible sources and patients were done by a single person followed by a random check by the second and third reviewers. Overall, 124 patients were identified and their data was collected. Different herbal medicinal plants were explored by different patients as home remedies in the research survey. Several herbal medicinal plants options are proposed in this research survey to collect more and more data for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19. However, their efficacy and safety still needs scientific validation through rigorous randomized controlled trials. This research may help inform decisions about the importance of research and development in traditional medicinal plants for COVID-19 prevention and treatment. Findings indicate that half of the participants (50·41%) reportedly had a stable weight followed by one-third participants (31·71%) experiencing weight gain during COVID-19. Half of the participants (50 %) maintained a regular meal pattern and added these traditional medicinal plants ingredients to their daily meals (48·39 %).

Keywords: TraditionalMedicines,Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-related Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),COVID-19,Immunity booster; Antiviral, Medicinal plants (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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