ABSTRACT
The severity of infectious diseases has guided the course of politics and cultures of human civilizations since the dawn of human evolution. Human societies have long been in the practice of bioprospecting various natural products into medicinal tools against clinical imbalances. Over 60%–75% of the chemotherapeutics for cancer and infectious diseases have natural origins. In this context, terpenoids—more loosely called terpenes—consist of more than 23,000 known compounds and are the largest group of natural products. Several references are found in ancient books of medicine, including the Meteria Medica and the Rig Veda, regarding the use of various terpenoids in treatments of fatal viral infections throughout various civilizations. The undeniable success of terpenoids over synthetic drugs comes from their structure, which helps them to incorporate into lipid layers or to interfere with the indispensable sterol metabolism of several pathogens. This chapter focuses on various aspects of their impact as therapeutic agents against major infectious diseases and discusses the future prospects and the continuation of research on this class of products.
