Natural Plant Products (NPPs) with medicinal potential, derived from either traditional or modern medicine, serves as a source of approx. 5000 compounds per species to fight against multifarious diseases. Such tremendous source of secondary plant metabolites employs to defend themselves against bacteria, fungi or viruses and can be used in almost the same way in medicine to treat microbial or viral infections. The effective management of re-emerging pathogens with enhanced scope of attack and attributable resistance require intensive efforts in this direction. NPPs have become an ideal alternative to be explored for their therapeutic utilities by the virtue of their holistic broad spectrum activity; limited or no side effects; better acceptability and ease of local availability.
However, the Indian subcontinent has only 2% global market share of herbal medicine despite having 7000 Ayurvedic, 700 Unani, 600 Siddha medicines and 30 modern medicines. This clearly indicates the lack of directed research in instigating the search for newer antimicrobials based on either reverse pharmacology or classical quest of lead moiety. The expected market for NPPs is $5 Trillion by 2050; if focused research is triggered so as to yield therapeutic leads [3]. Such focused research demands an in depth knowledge of patho- physiology of disease causing microorganisms and rationale based selection of holistic agents having bio-protective potential.
Re-emerging strains of commensal microorganisms e.g., Salmonella enterica are scourging the human population due to greater penetrance in the ecosystem and limited / no treatment options. The outbreaks of Multi-Drug Resistant (MDR) strains of Salmonella enterica serovar typhimurium in the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and Africa showed approximately 16 million cases and 60,0000 deaths each year. These infections which were earlier contained within hospitals, have now higher penetration even at community level.
Salmonella is also associated with reactive arthritis having global population expressivity in a range of 6 to 30%, out of which 0.2%–7.3% cases were of joint inflammation alone. Incubation period of reactive arthritis is ambiguous spanning a time period of 2-4 weeks after the onset of enteric infection. Reactive arthritis is also reported to be associated with other food borne illness like Campylobacter and Shigella with reported infection rate of 1 and 4% in adults respectively. Such findings implied that such infections are burdening the economic setup of healthcare management attributed towards a longer duration of treatment with expensive antibiotics. Resistance in multidrug resistant pathogens is accredited to chromosomal mutations and selective pressure of several synthetic drugs used for the treatment.
Also, the resistance profile of Salmonella enterica serovar typhimurium indicates a shift from multidrug resistance to extensive drug resistance with resistance against tetracycline, streptomycin, sulfamethoxazole, ampicillin and ceftriaxone. Emergence of strains resistant to ciprofloxacin further broadened its risk spectra. The mitigation of such risk at early stages is necessary so as to cease the consequent cascade of its use with biothreat intent. New therapeutic modalities with multi- targeted mode of action are needed to be investigated. The holistic mode of physiological action of natural plant products with reduced or nil adverse drug reactions might serve as the probable candidate(s) to be explored.
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Ankit Tanwar BAB 2015