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Antimicrobial activity of Artemisia collected in Serbithang, Thimphu

Artimisia vulgaris is a species with a great importance in the history of medicine and was called “mother of herbs” in the middle age (1). It is a common herbaceous plant that exhibits high morphological and phytochemical variability depending on the location where it occurs. The different applications of this plant species have been possible due to its rich chemical composition, which especially includes essential oils, flavonoids, sesquiterpene lactones, phenolic acids, coumarins, and other groups of metabolites. Artemisinin was found to be a good antibacterial, antifungal, antileishmanial, and antitumor agent (2). The antibacterial properties of artemisinin had been tested on a wide range of bacteria, such as Escherichia coli (3), Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Mycobacterium intracellularae (4). Recently, this species has been taken under consideration to be active toward the virus SARS- CoV-2 and disease COVID-19 (5, 6).