Current Havoc of TB and its Alleviation by Green Pharmacy Discipline : Medical Biotechnology

Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the deadliest diseases of humans, with a present worldwide annual mortality rate of over a million. Global resurgence of TB, and the emergence of multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) and extensively-drug resistant TB (XDR-TB) in India call for the development of new anti-tubercular drugs to combat them. Medicinal plants from the rich heritage of Indian flora, a lesser-explored area as anti-TB green pharmacy till date, offer a hope for the development of alternative medicines, necessitating their potencies to be meticulously scanned and evaluated. For the effective control of MDR-strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a systematic screening of plants would be the first step in the development of a suitable phytodrug, which would also be economically viable in the medicinal plant trade. Use of such non-conventional anti-TB herbal medicines is expected to acquire brisk popularity, owing to the toxicity and overwhelming side-effects of anti-tubercular allopathic medicines. In the present review, a situation report on the on-going global efforts to discover and develop drugs from twelve selected medicinal plants have been discussed, which have ample potential as anti-TB agents, as identified from various sources in the corresponding literature reviewed.