African and Asian Medicinal Plants as a Repository for Prospective Antiviral Metabolites Against HIV-1 and SARS CoV-2: A Mini Review.

Introduction: The worldwide burden of viral infections has triggered a resurgence in the search for new and more efficient antiviral drugs. Scientists are also repurposing existing natural compounds such as the antimalarial drug artemisinin from Artemesia annua L. as potential drug candidates for some of the emerging and re-emerging viral infections such as covid-19 Aim: The aim of this review was to analyse the existing literature to explore the actual or potential natural antiviral compounds from African and Asian medicinal plants as lead compounds in the drug discovery process. Methods: We searched the literature on African and Asian medicinal plant species as antiviral agents for HIV-1 and the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) in various databases and search engines such as Web of Science, Google Scholar and PubMed. The search was limited to in vitro, in vivo, and clinical studies and excluded in silico studies. Results: We present 16 plant species with actual or potential antiviral activity against HIV-1 and SARS-CoV-2. These plant species span the continents of Africa and Asia where they are widely used for treating several other ailments. Conclusion: Natural compounds from plants can play a significant role in the clinical management of HIV/AIDS and the covid-19 pandemic. More research needs to be conducted to investigate the potential toxicities of the various compounds and their efficacies in clinical settings.

Ways to manage hepatitis C without cirrhosis: Treatment by comparison of coded eastern medicine hepcinal with interferon alpha 2b and ribavirin.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a serious and significant global health problem in the Pakistan and elsewhere. In majority of cases HCV infection remains asymptomatic but in advance cases it may progress to fibrosis of liver, shrinkage of liver cells or failure of liver. The hepatitis C may progress to cause liver cirrhosis that mostly develop in 20% of the affected patients in 20 years with an increased risk in male, alcoholic drink, immune-compromised and who acquire HCV infection after the age of 40 years. This was an open-label prospective study conducted on 66 clinically and immunologically diagnosed cases of HCV infection. In Hepcinal treated group, there were significant improvement in HCV associated symptoms compared to control group (p<0.05). While Interferon therapy resulted in significant improvement in serological response (55.88%) compared to Hepcinal treated patients (46.88%). It was concluded that Hepcinal has shown better clinical response but no significant serological response (p=0.3244) and it might be an alternative therapy to treat hepatitis C infection and to prevent its progression into chronic ailment.

Comparative clinical efficacy and safety of coded herbal medicine Dermovix in the management of patients with atopic dermatitis versus allopathic medicine.

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is defined as a chronic, highly pruritic inflammatory condition of skin. It is estimated that this disease may lead significant morbidity and also adversely affects the quality of life. Atopic dermatitis responds well to home treatment. Proper skin care reduces the need for medicines. Topical creams and oral antihistamines can be used to suppress the symptoms. The clinical trial was conducted on 60 patients in which 30 are control and 30 are test by taking written consent from them. Dermovix significantly improved skin symptoms associated with AD. This Dermovix ointment was safe and well tolerated in specified age group patients. Overall results of individual group were analyzed by using Paired sample t-test and level of significance of all the symptoms was calculated. Both the drugs showed similar efficacy and the calculated p value was p<0.05. Except in case of dry skin the test drug had shown not significant p value i.e. 0.407. When we compare all these and their effects and patients' complaints then Test group have shown better results because of no side effects.