Antiviral essential oils incorporated in nanocarriers: strategy for prevention from COVID-19 and future infectious pandemics

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus has become a life- threatening disease and it is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) This new strain of coronavirus is not completely understood and to date, there is no treatment of coronavirus Traditional ayurvedic medicines mainly essential oils and Chinese herbs have always played a vital role in the prevention and treatment of several epidemics and pandemics In the meantime, guidelines of the ministry of AYUSH (Ayurveda, yoga, unani, siddha and homoepathy) include a traditional medicinal treatment for flu and fever and also recommended to boost immunity to prevent the spread of coronavirus It is not possible to find which essential oil will offer the best level of protection However, it is likely to assume that some essential oils are likely to offer a measurable level of defense in the same way they do with many other known viruses METHODS: Literature relevant to various essential oils having antiviral activity has been collected and compiled Various nanocarriers of essential oils have also been stated The database was collected using various search engines such as jgate, google scholar, scihub, pubmed, sciencedirect etc Results: Essential oils contain active constituents such as phenolics compounds, terpenoids, alkaloids, phenyl propanoids etc , which are responsible for their biological properties such as antiviral, antibacterial, antimicrobial, antioxidant activities and many more But the use of essential oils has always been limited due to poor solubility, solvent toxicity, volatility and low solubility Many nanotechnology based carriers especially, liposomes, dendrimers, nanoparticles, nanoemulsion and microemulsion etc have been evidenced to overcome limitations associated with essential oils CONCLUSION: Several essential oils possess potent antiviral activity and are characterized by fewer side effects and are safe to human use The nanocarrier systems of these oils have proved the potential to treat viral and bacterial infections