Chinese Herbs Treat COVID-19 - Traditional Chinese Medicine is Promising

Summary of Ren, 2020 Traditional Chinese medicine for COVID-19 treatment

Traditional Chinese Medicine has a long history and played an important role in the prevention and treatment of several epidemic diseases. It is a branch of traditional medicine based on more than 3,500 years of Chinese medical practice that includes herbal mixes, acupuncture, and even tai chi.

During the 2003 SARS epidemic, traditional Chinese medicine was employed in and had a significant impact based on what we see from clinical trials. When COVID-19 broke out in early January, over 3,1000 medical staff were deployed to the Hu Bei province. The traditional medicine scheme was included in the guideline to treat COVID-19. 60,107 patients were treated with traditional medicine and in 102 mild symptoms treated with traditional methods, the results were promising:

· Clinical symptom disappearance time shortened 2 days

· Recovery time of body temperature shortened 1.7 days

· Length of stay in hospital shortened 2.2 days

· Improvement rate of CT image increased 22 %

· Clinical cure rate increased 33 %

· 27.4 % reduction in the rate of common to severe cases

One of the most useful herbal concoctions was the qingfei paidu decoction (QPD). Some of the ingredients are listed below:

Among the 701 confirmed cases treated by QPD, 130 cases were cured and discharged, clinical symptoms of 51 cases disappeared. Additionally,

· 268 cases of symptoms improved

· 212 cases of stables symptoms with aggravation

· Effective cure rate of QPD against COVID-19 is over 90%

The target organ of COVID-19 is the lung, and the Chinese call the virus “damp and toxin plague.” The 16 lungs of the QVD concoction have primary pharmacological action in the lung meridian. After treatment of QCD, the lung targets expressed ACE-2, a receptor of COVID-19, indicating the improvement of treatment of virus. QVD can inhibit the replication of COVID-19 by acting on multiple ribosomal proteins. Since COVID-19 can lead to strong immune response and inflammatory events. Functional enrichment analysis demonstrated that QPD could alleviate or even inhibit excessive immune response and eliminate inflammation by regulating immune system pathways.

Implications of the QVD drug can lead new drug development efforts for coronaviruses and give guidance to other countries going through their surge in COVID-19 patients. Overall, it is worth looking into more international collaboration in what has been helpful in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ren, Jun-Ling, Ai-Hua Zhang, and Xi-Jun Wang. "Traditional Chinese Medicine for COVID-19 Treatment."Pharmacological Research155 (2020): 104743. Web.