Effectiveness and Safety of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Treating COVID-19: Clinical Evidence from China

Abstract

When the outbreak of COVID-19 occurred in 2020, the Chinese government promptly undertook a series of preventive control and medical treatment measures that have effectively reduced the infection and mortality rates of COVID-19. In the process of preventing COVID-19 transmission and treating COVID-19, the Chinese government actively promotes the use of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), and a series of studies have been carried out to determine the efficacy of TCM for COVID-19. Chinese physicians have accumulated rich experiences and created three Chinese patent medicines (i.e., <i>Lianhua Qingwen</i> Capsule, <i>Jinhua Qinggan</i> Granules, <i>and Xuebijing</i> Injection) and three herbal prescriptions (i.e., <i>Xuanfeibaidu Recipe, Huashi Paidu Recipe, and Qingfei Paidu</i> Decoction), as well as other strategies based on TCM theory to effectively treat COVID-19. Studies have reported that TCM treatment plays a significant role in improving the clinical symptoms, shortening the duration of hospitalization, reducing the overall mortality rate, obtaining favorable treatment outcomes in patients with severe COVID-19, preventing disease progression, improving quality of life and immunity, and reducing the positive rate of viral nucleic acid testing. TCM treatment has a fairly high degree of safety, but the level of evidence needs to be further improved.