Use of medicinal plants by indigenous people as a possible source of drugs for Covid-19

Abstract

The World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020 declares the pandemic for the disease COVID-19, this was caused by a coronavirus, the SAR-CoV-2. By the end of 2021, many indigenous peoples reported a decrease in the number of people contaminated and deaths from COVID-19, pointing to the application of medicinal plants as the main cause of this improvement. The objective was to validate the use of medicinal plants of indigenous peoples, to combat COVID-19. The methodology used was documentary research. It turned out that medicinal plants have been a source of drugs for different diseases; It is estimated that 85% of the planet's population uses medicinal plants as the main source of medical care, and more than 40% of synthetic drugs in pharmaceutical markets are derived from plants and natural products. It was concluded that science is based on this ancestral knowledge and that also the extracts of the different herbal products and the molecules that exert an anti-SARSCOV-1 action, inhibit the virus directly from its entry by blocking the ACE-2 receptors, proteins that are also used by SARS-COV-2. Studies using these molecules may be promising therapeutic treatment against COVID-19.