evaluation of and extract activity against SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant in Golden Syrian hamsters: Potential herbal alternative for COVID-19 treatment.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has triggered extensive research, mainly focused on identifying effective therapeutic agents, specifically those targeting highly pathogenic SARS-CoV-2 variants. This study aimed to investigate the antiviral efficacy and anti-inflammatory activity of herbal extracts derived from and , using a Golden Syrian hamster model infected with Delta, a representative variant associated with severe COVID-19. Hamsters were intranasally inoculated with the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant and orally administered either vehicle control, , or extract at a dosage of 1000 mg/kg/day. Euthanasia was conducted on days 1, 3, and 7 post-inoculation, with 4 animals per group. The results demonstrated that oral administration of extract significantly alleviated both lethality and infection severity compared with the vehicle control and extract. However, neither extract exhibited direct antiviral activity in terms of reducing viral load in the lungs. Nonetheless, extract treatment significantly reduced IL-6 protein levels in the lung tissue (7278 ± 868.4 pg/g tissue) compared to the control (12,495 ± 1118 pg/g tissue), indicating there was a decrease in local inflammation. This finding is evidenced by the ability of extract to reduce histological lesions in the lungs of infected hamsters. Furthermore, both extracts significantly decreased IL-6 and IP-10 mRNA expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of infected hamsters compared to the control group, suggesting systemic anti-inflammatory effects occurred. In conclusion, extract's potential therapeutic application for SARS-CoV-2 arises from its observed capacity to lessen inflammatory cytokine concentrations and mitigate lung pathology.