ABSTRACT
Traditional medical practice in the world has maintained its popularity in spite of the challenges of the rapid development of modern medicine. The World Health Organization observed that 80% of world population still rely on traditional practices of special cultural heritages. In Asia, the traditional practices include mainly that of the Middle East, India and China. The 3000 years of development in the three different regions has resulted in cross-cultural influences and exchanges, particularly revealed in the rich collections of medicinal herbs. Ayurveda medicine has well maintained its traditional philosophy and practice. It has enjoyed very substantial governmental support on the national level and has remained popular. Traditional Chinese Medicine, likewise, has kept its popularity and vibrance. However, with the ever advancing modern medicine which is giving efficient acute care and specific solutions to known target areas of clinical concern, are unavoidable obstacles to an integrative practice. Besides India, China is the only country in the world where Traditional Medicine is still playing a major role in national health care. During the COVID-19 pandemic both Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine practitioners tried hard to contribute by offering integrative treatment to the infected patients. They were getting a lot of national and professional endorsements. One would speculate that with this unknown virus and diverse clinical presentations, a better integrative program would be able to provide better outcome. On the prevention side, medicinal herbs are expected to be able to boost up the innate immunity of the individual so that infection could be better resisted. Given the similarities between the Indian and Chinese Systems of traditional practice, it is suggested that Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine could develop a joint mission with combined efforts, to collaborate in research and trials, with the aim of consolidating Integrative Practice. This article concentrates on the Indian and Chinese areas of traditional practice, viz. Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To systematically review the clinical efficacy and safety of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) with and without Western medicine (WM) for different severity of COVID-19. METHODS: CNKI, PubMed, Wanfang Database, ClinicalTrails.gov, Embase, ChiCTR and ICTRP were searched from 01 Jan, 2020 to 30 Jun, 2021. Two authors independently assessed all the randomized clinical trials (RCTs) for trial inclusion, data extraction and quality assessment. Meta-analysis was conducted using Review Manager software (RevMan 5.4.1). Evidence was assessed using Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE). Primary outcomes included total effectiveness rate. Secondary outcomes included improvements in symptom improvement and total adverse event rate. Different severity of COVID-19 patients was assessed in subgroup analysis. This study was registered with INPLASY, INPLASY202210072. RESULTS: 22 high quality RCTs involving 1789 participants were included. There were no trial used CHM alone nor compare placebo or no treatment. Compared with WM, combined CHM and WM (CHM-WM) treatment showed higher total effectiveness rate, lower symptom scores of fever, cough, fatigue, dry throat and pharyngalgia, shorter mean time to viral conversion, better Computerized Tomography (CT) image and blood results, fewer total adverse events and worse conditions (P < 0.05). Subgroup analysis showed that the total effectiveness rate of combined CHM-WM group was significantly higher than WM group, especially for mild and moderate patients. No significant differences in mortality and adverse events were found between combined CHM-WM and WM treatment. No serious adverse events and long-term outcomes were reported. CONCLUSION: Current evidence supported the therapeutic effects and safety of combined CHM-WM treatment on COVID-19, especially for patients with mild and moderate symptoms. Long-term effects of therapy are worthy in further study.