Traditional Medicine - A Possible Stop Codon for COVID-19

A novel coronavirus (2019-nCov) has wreak havoc across the globe, especially in the USA, Italy, Spain, France, Iran, UK, and China. The coronavirus infection has caused a pandemic (COVID-19), which is an acute infectious pneumonia of the 21st Century. 2019-nCov, being novel in nature has brought the world to a standstill and forced a global health emergency, which is attributed to the unavailability of viable antiviral drug, and the only options left are supportive care and non-specific treatment to improve the symptomatic conditions of patients. But still, it is not a permanent solution and there is a need to find an effective antiviral drug. The earlier reported SARS-CoV and recently emerged SARS-CoV-2 have similar homology in terms of epidemiology, genomics and pathogenesis, and it has been observed that the SARS-CoV was contained by Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Thus, this review summarizes the information on natural traditional medicine, including Indian Ayurvedic Medicine and TCM having antiviral potential which have been used to control earlier pandemics, and their candidacy for the new drug development to control the COVID-19. In the wake of the current unprecedented situation, it is imperative to find effective and novel anti-SARS-CoV-2 agents by exploring traditional medicine which would be highly precise in action with minimal side effects.