Potential anti-flavivirus herbals: A better and safer heath alternatives

Flaviviral infections are increasing at an alarming rate creating a global health concern. As a result, targeted and focused research for developing suitable diagnostics and therapeutics against the re-emergent infection have become the need of the hour. The targeted search of natural antiviral measures surged, as such ancient practices have been used to treat different vector borne infections like malaria, Japanese encephalitis, and dengue. Antivirals can serve to be safer, cheaper and more importantly non-toxic than the chemical alternatives. This article encompasses and elucidate the potential antiflaviviral activities of herbals (medicinal plants), which are geographically distributed around the world, and have significant potential to be used or are being screened to treat similar existent infections. Medicinal plants under trials for their antiflaviviral properties are also covered in this review. Ongoing studies suggest that medicinal plants can be a rich source for flaviviral combating compounds but further more investigations are needed to establish the potentiality of these medicinal herbs for new emergent flavivirus infection control. Enormous scope is available in these herbals, which can result in bringing out viable alternatives and long term resistance against the emerging and re-emerging flaviviral diseases.