The corona virus disease (COVID-19) was started in Wuhan, China, in late
2019. It is caused by a novel strain of severe acute respiratory syndrome corona viruses
(SARS-CoV-2) that has become pandemic on March 11, 2020 and endangered the
existence of human beings on the earth as the infection has been spreading in mass
population day by day within a few months with a high killing rate. The COVID-19
pandemic has pushed the modern health care system of developing and developed
countries to their limits for its effective management and control since the drug
discovery process is a long journey and challenging task and there is no specific small
molecule chemotherapeutics to combat this novel coronavirus. Hence, the existence of
human life is a great challenge. Mother Nature has played an important role to combat
many pandemics that arrived in past centuries in absence of modern medicines. Nature
has been a source of many natural drugs derived from plants' secondary metabolites
which may be used to combat COVID-19. Natural sourced traditional Indian and
Chinese medicines alternative therapy should be prioritized in combination with
modern medicines to combat COVID-19. With rising COVID-19 cases globally, it
would be too difficult to provide proper treatment even for the severe cases in
hospitals. Therefore, the general public is advised to wear the mask, maintain social
distancing, and use sanitizers. The COVID-19 mild infected patients may be isolated at
home and can be taken care of by natural medicines. In this chapter, an attempt has
been made to repurpose all potential natural drugs and natural Ayurvedic formulations
that may be beneficial to combat viruses like the SARS-CoV-2, due to their antiviral
and immune-modulator properties available under Indian traditional medicine and
Chinese traditional medicine system for the effective treatment or prevention of
COVID-19
Keywords: COVID-19, Drug repurposing, Natural formulations, Traditional Chinese medicines (TCM), Traditional Indian medicines (TIM)
