Concise review: Medicinal plants are effective against leishmaniasis

Leishmaniasis is an important zoonotic parasitic disease in tropical areas. It is a neglected disease and is a great health catastrophe in Iran. Pentavalent antimony compounds are used for its treatment, but they have adverse effects. Therefore, the use of natural herbs with low adverse effects seems necessary for treatment of Leishmaniasis. In this study, we tried to introduce the natural medicines effective against Leishmaniasis. In this review study, keywords searched included natural medicines, herbal medicines, medicinal plants, Leishmaniasis, and treatment in relevant publications published between 1990 and 2017. Searching was on databases including ISI Web of Science, PubMed, PubMed Central, Scopus, ISC, SID, Magiran and some other databases. The relevant articles were reviewed for the review study. The results showed that medicinal plants: Ferula assafoatida (with IC50 of 0.38 mg/ml), Glycyrrhiza glabra (with IC50 of 25mg/ml), Allium sativum (with IC50 of 0.57 mg/ml), Cephalis ipecacuana (with IC50 of 0.01 mg/ml), Artemisia aucheri (with IC50 of 0.46 mg/ml) and Eucalyptus globulus (with IC50 of 0.17 mg/ml) were the natural medicines effective against the disease. Compositions with di-, tri-, tetra-Sulfide, Coumarin derivatives, Camuou-nephrole, Episamarcandine, Amblipernine, Carnephrole, Azafoetidine, Froxolicin, Azafoetidinole, Saradaferine, 1, 8 Cineole, Scopodreniole, Semen, Sabinine, Cineole, Inaleole, Eojenole, Farenzole, Borneol, Allicin, acid Glycerisic, Emetine and Cephalin can have the potential to produce potent drugs against Leishmaniasis. In sum, there are some specific medicinal plants and compounds effective against Leishmaniasis which can be used per se or following changes in their formula to prepare and introduce new drags against this disease