What Role Does Chinese Herbal Medicine Play in the Prevention and Treatment of Novel Coronavirus?
Currently, novel coronavirus still can not be treated with a vaccine or specific drugs. Western medicine mainly focuses on symptomatic support treatment. In contrast, Chinese herbal medicine has thousands of years of history in the treatment of epidemic diseases, with an in-depth study on its etiology, pathogenesis, syndrome differentiation, and treatment.
In the treatment of SARS in 2003, traditional Chinese medicine played an important role. The National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China and State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine of the People's Republic of China have jointly issued several papers to advocate the combination of traditional Chinese and Western medicine.
Thirty-four novel coronavirus patients who were discharged from Hubei integrated hospital of traditional Chinese and Western Medicine from January 15th to February 8th were compared with 18 western medicine treatment schemes by using integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine.
The clinical symptoms disappeared time, body temperature recovery time, average hospitalization days, and TCM syndrome scores were all significantly shorter than those in the Western Medicine group. The 52 groups were discharged from the hospital.
The disappearance rate of other concomitant symptoms was 87.9%, the improvement rate of CT image was 88.2%, and the clinical cure rate was 94.1%, which was significantly higher than that of Western medicine group; the incidence of common type to severe type and critical type in western medicine group was 5.9%, which was lower than that of Western medicine group; and there was no death in western medicine group.
The novel coronavirus is still mainly treated with antiviral, anti-infection, and symptomatic support treatment. All the antiviral clinical trials for new crown pneumonia are all from the previous treatment of SARS. The Novel Coronavirus Diagnosis and Treatment Plan were published by the National Health and Health Committee and the State Administration of traditional Chinese medicine jointly published by MERS and HIV and other influenza viruses.
Traditional Chinese medicine treatment adopts the method of syndrome differentiation and treatment. According to different conditions of each patient, an individualized treatment scheme is given, including oral Chinese medicine decoction and proprietary Chinese medicine.
Meanwhile, some patients are also given an injection of Chinese herbal medicine, of which the utilization rate of herbal decoction reaches 88.2%. At the early stage of admission, the combination of traditional Chinese medicine decoction and injection can significantly shorten the course of the disease, reduce the clinical symptoms of patients, reduce the transformation from common type to severe and critical type, and reduce the mortality.
In addition, injection of herbal medicine should be used before lung injury, which is more conducive to the overall recovery of patients. It was found that the immune function (lymphocyte percentage), inflammatory index, heart, liver, and kidney function-related index in the treatment group were better than those in the treatment group.
Therefore, the combination of Chinese herbal and Western medicine may be helpful to protect the organ function of the heart, liver, and kidney, reduce the inflammatory reaction and improve the immune system function of the body. The results show that in the absence of precise and specific targeted drugs, the herbal formula can help to prevent and treat the novel coronavirus.
