From plant-derived antivirals to treat COVID-19, to recombinant expression technology enabling production of therapeutics, what is the role of plant science in combating pandemics ?
The herbal beverage from Madagascar offers a possibility of fighting the pandemic. It contains plant extracts from indigenous herbs which include artemisia annua - a plant with proven anti-malaria properties. Madagascar currently has so far recorded the highest coronavirus recovery rates on the African continent. There is however still a lot of scepticism about the effectiveness of the plant based remedy. If trials are successful this would, of course, be good for indigenous plant science but not necessarily good for Big Pharma.