Andrographis paniculata Usage in the Treatment of Viral Diseases

Andrographis paniculata (A. paniculata) is a herbaceous plant used as a remedy for many diseases in traditional medicine. Numerous beneficial effects of A. paniculata have been demonstrated in multiple in vitro and in vivo studies, this study systematically reviews the relevant literature and provide a summary on the antiviral properties of A. paniculata in relieving viral diseases. This systematic review used the databases, Science Direct and PubMed for studies published from 1st of January, 1990 to 1st of May, 2021. To obtain further data, a manual search was also carried out on the bibliography of the referred articles. The following number of articles were identified in the literature search, Science direct = 167 and PubMed = 33. A total of 20 articles are included in this review. Andrographis paniculata has beneficial health effects in viral diseases such as Dengue, Chikungunya, Upper Respiratory Tract Infections (URTI), Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV). The wide range of medicinal effects observed from this plant is putatively from the phytochemicals andrographolide, neoandrographolide and andrographiside. The available evidence suggested that A. paniculatais a potential candidate to ameliorate multiple viral diseases, however randomized controlled clinical trials are needed to validate this hypothesis.