Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a new acute respiratory infectious disease, and the global epidemic is still spreading since the outbreak in December 2019, becoming a major global public health event. Until now, there is still no effective clinical therapeutic drugs that can cure the disease. The World Health Organisation reported that four candidate drugs, including Remdesivir, are ineffective or have little effect on COVID-19. In China, Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), in combination with Western medicine (WM), has made important and lasting contributions in the battle against COVID-19.
Watch for Symptoms
People with COVID-19 have had a wide range of symptoms reported – ranging from mild symptoms to severe illness. Symptoms may appear 2-14 days after exposure to the virus. Anyone can have mild to severe symptoms. People with these symptoms may have COVID-19:
- Fever or chills
- Cough
- Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
- Fatigue
- Muscle or body aches
- Headache
- New loss of taste or smell
- Sore throat
- Congestion or runny nose
- Nausea or vomiting
- Diarrhea
This list does not include all possible symptoms.
Evidence and efficacy of Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) treatment for COVID-19
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been used in the whole process of the novel coronavirus disease treatment, the “Diagnosis and Treatment Protocol for Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia Trial Version 3” clearly stated that 91.5% (or 74,187) of COVID-19 patients were treated with Chinese herbal medicine (CHM). (National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China, 2020; The State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China, 2020).
A large number of clinical studies have shown the efficacy of TCM in the related prevention, treatment, and recovery. Early intervention with Chinese herbal medicine and integrated traditional Chinese and western medicine can reduce clinical symptoms, shorten the course of the disease, prevent severe forms of the disease, improve the cure rate, and reduce mortality.
Some studies even reported that TCM can improves chest images and the negativity rate of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) nucleic acid test. TCM also could inhibit virus replication and transcription, prevent the combination of SARS-CoV-2 and the host, and attenuate the cytokine storm and immune deficiency caused by the virus infection.
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) protocol for COVID-19
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the COVID-19 belongs to the category of “pestilence” and “noxious dampness pestilence” and is widely spread at home and abroad. Since the outbreak, the National Health Commission has issued seven editions of Diagnosis and Treatment Protocol for Corona Virus Disease 2019, which has important guiding significance for the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of this disease.
According to the latest protocol, TCM treatment not only targets on the clinical treatment period, but also covers the medical observation stage and the convalescence period. It is embodied in a core belief of TCM——preventative treatment, which lays great emphasis on prevention before a disease arises, guarding against pathological changes when falling sick, and protecting recovering patients from relapse.
In the medical observation period, TCM mainly focuses on the symptoms of fatigue, fever and and gastrointestinal discomfort.
In the clinical treatment period, it divides into four majors stages, depending on the severity of COVID-19 symptoms. As the development of pestilence is really fast, TCM treatments and suggestions would change in different patterns:
Mild Case
Moderate Case
Sever Case
Critical Case
For the convalescence stage, the protocol describes the clinical manifestation and treatments for two major pattern, which offers practitioners a proper guideline for diagnosis and treatment:
Lung-spleen qi deficiency pattern
Deficiency of both qi and yin pattern
How do we treat COVID-19 at B&Q Acupuncture?
Active cases:
TCM emphasis on individuality. It treats a disease based on full consideration of the individual constitution, climatic and seasonal conditions, and environment. This is embodied in the term “giving treatment on the basis of syndrome differentiation.” TCM therapies focus on the person who is sick rather than the illness that the patient contracts, i.e., aiming to restore the harmonious state of body functions that is disrupted by pathogenic factors.
If you are suffering from COVID-19, B&Q Acupuncture would offers Telehealth (Video) or Phone Consults with our TCM practitioners. We would spend a lot of time talking about the patient’s COVID-19 symptoms and also take into account your environmental and social living environment, work, lifestyle and diet, to understand what’s really going on. Once we identify the stage of COVID-19, we will prepare the herbal medicine and organise a delivery service as soon as possible. We will also give you personalised advice and treatment plan based on Chinese medicine diagnosis.
Post COVID stage:
In addition to herbal medication, TCM has many non-pharmacological alternative approaches such as acupuncture and moxibustion, tuina (massage), cupping and guasha (scraping).
If you are at the convalescence stage with lots of post-COVID syndromes, we would recommend a face-to-face consult. And we can improve your body constitution with acupuncture along with Chinese medicine, cupping or scraping. We will also give you personalised advice and treatment plan based on Chinese medicine diagnosis.
We hope that this article not only provides a reference for health care professionals to improve and optimise the prevention and treatment system of TCM for infectious diseases, but also help the public to recognise the significant contributions of TCM for COVID-19 and to understand the true scientific value of TCM.