On April 5, “WHO says Chinese medicine can effectively treat COVID-19” became a hot topic.
Image source: World Health Organization official website
In China and many countries around the world, traditional Chinese medicine has played a huge and definite role in the fight against the epidemic. On March 31, the WHO official website released a summary of a seminar on “Traditional Chinese Medicine for the Treatment of New Coronary Pneumonia”. The minutes show that after reviewing the three reports, 21 experts from WHO collectively believed:
These data show that Chinese herbal medicine is “both safe and effective” when used in combination with traditional antiviral drugs.
Since the COVID-19 outbreak, Chinese medicine treatment has been a topic of great concern. Since the outbreak of the Wuhan epidemic in 2020, Chinese medicine has been widely used in epidemic prevention in various places, and good results have been received. On the other hand, doubts about the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine have never ceased.
This WHO assessment has also been questioned, what is the truth?
WHO recognizes the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine based on data submitted by China
This WHO workshop was not “on a whim”.
On January 20 this year, Huang Luqi, deputy director of the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine of China, went to the WHO headquarters in Geneva to submit the Evidence-Based Evaluation Study of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the Treatment of New Coronary Pneumonia to the World Health Organization Report” – This is China’s most authoritative research achievement in the field of traditional Chinese medicine to combat the new crown. Holding this report, Huang Luqi initiated a discussion with WHO on the topic of “Cooperation in the Field of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Traditional Medicine”.
“I hope WHO will make a positive and objective assessment of the advantages and roles of traditional Chinese medicine in this epidemic.” Huang Luqi said.
Image source: State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine official website
On March 31, WHO released the minutes of the meeting. The content of the meeting included the above-mentioned “evidence-based evaluation” research report, as well as two reports on clinical application and scientific research.
These three reports detail the clinical application of traditional Chinese medicine in the fight against COVID-19, scientific research progress, and methods for selecting randomized trials.
Three reports argue that traditional Chinese medicine “plays a role in all stages of COVID-19 infection.” For example, in the mild and moderate stages, TCM treatment can shorten the time to “clear the virus”; in the severe stage, the mortality rate of those who received TCM treatment was 1.2%, while that of those who did not receive it was 4.8%; At this stage, traditional Chinese medicine nursing can play the role of “promoting health” and “improving the quality of life”.
In addition, the report said, more than 20 domestic studies have shown that traditional Chinese medicine can help shorten the time for the new crown nucleic acid to turn negative.
In this regard, WHO experts believe that the data submitted by China is indeed sufficient for the meeting to make a “cautiously optimistic” judgment: That is, traditional Chinese medicine is in preventing mildew. , The disease deterioration of the new crown cases with moderate symptoms can play a certain role.
The expert group also stated that its efficacy in critically ill patients remains to be evaluated, and suggested that domestic scholars publish these data in international journals for more detailed discussion .
The Health and Knowledge Bureau reviewed the original text of the meeting minutes and found that the relevant discussion results did not use strong concluding words. The meeting minutes also mentioned that all judgments made at the seminar were based on the materials submitted by China. Moreover, this conference itself is not to draw a conclusion on the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of new coronary pneumonia, but to exchange research results, to evaluate the “contribution of traditional Chinese medicine comprehensive therapy in the treatment of new coronary pneumonia”.
The chair of the expert group, Elisabetsky, said directly during the discussion: The question to be answered at the meeting is “how to improve TCM research in the future”.
At the end of the symposium, WHO experts suggested that Chinese scholars continue to optimize current data analysis, improve test methods, and promote more international trials to further investigate these products “in other Effectiveness in the population”.
Discuss the value of traditional medicine, countries may consider using traditional Chinese medicine
During the workshop, WHO experts took special note of some bright spots in the three Chinese reports.
The minutes of the meeting mentioned that Chinese researchers have noticed that Chinese medicine treatment may cause “loss of appetite” in patients with new coronary pneumonia. WHO experts believe that research on the long-term impact of related treatments on patients with new crowns is an important topic, but in Western countries, this issue is often ignored by scholars.
From the entire meeting minutes,WHO experts have a positive attitude towards the treatment of COVID-19 with traditional Chinese medicine.
Since the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, Chinese medicine treatment has gained certain recognition both at home and abroad. According to data from the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, during the Wuhan epidemic in 2020, the proportion of traditional Chinese medicine participating in treatment in the country was as high as 92.41%. A group of research results published by Hubei Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine showed that : the clinical cure rate of integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine was 30% higher than that of the Western medicine group.
In mid-March 2022, the National Health Commission announced that Yiling Pharmaceutical’s Lianhua Qingwen Capsules, Buchang Pharmaceutical’s Xuanfeibaidu Granules, and Taiji Group’s Huoxiangzhengqi would be taken orally Liquid and other products are included in the ninth edition of the “New Coronary Virus Pneumonia Diagnosis and Treatment Program”. In terms of non-drug therapy, acupuncture has also been added to treat patients with mild and common symptoms.
At the press conference on the prevention and control of COVID-19 in Shanghai, Fang Min, president of Shuguang Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and head of the TCM Epidemic Prevention and Control Base, said that Shanghai is targeting positive infections. The use rate of traditional Chinese medicine is more than 98%, and “Chinese medicine anti-epidemic prescription is very popular among patients”.
This time, WHO experts suggested after the assessment: Member states can consider applying traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of new coronary pneumonia in the context of their own actual conditions.
At present, limited by the level of economic development of various countries, modern medicine cannot effectively cover all parts of the world. In this case, some traditional treatments can form an effective supplement. In fact, taking traditional Chinese medicine treatment as a sample, discussing “how to effectively improve the contribution of traditional medicine in the global epidemic” is one of the goals that WHO wants to achieve in this meeting.
At the beginning of March 2022, WHO issued the “International Standard Terminology of Traditional Chinese Medicine”, which defined a unified English translation standard for 3415 terms of basic theory, diagnosis, disease syndrome and therapy of traditional Chinese medicine. .
The standardization and internationalization of traditional Chinese medicine has taken another crucial step.
(Picture from Visual China)