Ethnomedicinal Approach against Human Cytomegalovirus Infection: A Search for Alternative Therapy

Abstract

Human cytomegalovirus is a common opportunistic infection that can infect immunocompromised and immunosuppressed individuals as well as neonates. There are currently very few clinically authorized medications on the market for use in therapy. Although they are all incredibly effective against active HCMV infections but each of these medications has a certain amount of side effects which can leads to serious health complications to the patients. In search for the alternative approach to these synthetic drugs antiviral substances produced from natural resources are urgently needed as because due to less cytotoxic impact as their synthetic equivalents. The medicinal mushrooms have shown to be a really intriguing option in this regard. Utilizing these compounds might be a viable first line of defense against since traditional ethnomedicinal substances have been a rich source of bioactive molecules with different pharmacological actions, including antiviral activity. This chapter is hereby comprising with the investigative work of those promising ethnomedicinal resources to understand the new frontier of HCMV research.