VIRAL INFECTIONS
SELF STUDY
 
68 Audios (7 hours and 21 minutes total)
Notes & Slides
PDF Resources (5 total)
 
This is the Self-Study option for this course, which means you can study and learn this material for personal development. This option does not provide faculty support, grading of assignments, or a certificate of completion.

This course is a part of the curriculum for the Western Clinical Herbalism program. 
 
 
Overview
Review the pathophysiology of viral infection.
Offer a general overview of the antiviral herbal materia medica.
Review myths and misconceptions about the effects of herbal medicines on virus in the body.
Describe the pathophysiology and herbal therapeutics for topical viral infections, such as herpes and shingles.
Describe the pathophysiology and herbal therapeutics for mosquito-borne viral infections such as West Nile, Dengue, Chikungunya, or Zika virus infections, including treatment strategies for neurological complications or long-term sequelae.
Describe general nutritional and herbal support for immunity during respiratory viral infection.
Describe historical and contemporary therapeutics for influenza, including a review of herbal remedies used during the 1918 Influenza pandemic.
Describe the stages of COVID-19, from prevention, to early onset, to the onset of inflammatory symptoms, to “long haul” consequences, with herbal strategies for each of the stages.
 
Viral infections, whether acute or chronic, are among the most common maladies affecting the human species. With infection, the virus competes against the host resistance, and lifestyle, nutritional, and herbal methods to maintain or increase host resistance are the main strategies. With topical infection, herbs or their constituents and volatile oils, may have a direct effect against viral replication. But with internal use, plant constituents are too dilute to directly affect a virus, and supporting host resistance by various methods, and reducing local or systemic inflammation that may result from the antiviral immune response become the only strategies available. This course reviews the scientific literature on the effects of herbs on viral infection, and more-important offers the traditional and contemporary professional treatments used for these conditions.
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