Traditional Chinese medicine for novel coronavirus pneumonia treatment: main force or supplement?

Mi Li,Xue Yang,Kai Li＊,Yi-Qiang Xie＊

1School of Traditional Chinese Medicine,Hainan Medical University,Haikou 571199,China.2Department of Medical Oncology,Tianjin Medical University General Hospital,Tianjin 300052,China.

Chinese and English contrastive vocabulary:

Huang Di Nei Jing: Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor; Shanghan Zabing Lun: Treatise on Cold Damage Diseases; Zhou Hou Bei Ji Fang: Handy Therapies for Emergencies; Dou Ke Jin Jing Fu Ji Jie: Smallpox Treatments Collection.

The nationwide death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in China has risen to 491,with nearly 24,363 individuals infected,according to official figures released on February 5,2020 [1].With no proven drugs to treat the infection caused by the deadly coronavirus,China’s top health organization has advised hospitals to use various treatments,including traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and artificial lungs,to tackle it[2].

The National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China and the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine of the People's Republic of China issued a diagnosis and treatment plan (trial version 4th) for novel coronavirus pneumonia on January 27,2020,providing specific recommendations for the treatment and prevention of the infection using TCM.Academician Zhang Boli,the President of the Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine,stated the following in an interview with Xinhua News Agency: “Chinese medicine plays an all-round role throughout the treatment of novel coronavirus pneumonia,but I still advocate integrated Chinese and Western medicine”[3].However,interestingly,on the same day,the famousThe New York Timesput forward a contrasting view on the use of TCM for the treatment of this infection.The report quoted the opinion of Dominic Dwyer,a medical virologist at the University of Sydney,who said,“There has never been a good antiviral agent,so that means that people would try things that have some effect.But there’s no evidence of significant benefits with any antiviral drugs or TCM”[4].

Infectious diseases have plagued China for a long time,and TCM has been used against these diseases since ages.In ancient Chinese medical bookHuang Di Nei Jing(Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor),methods and drugs (Xiao Jin Pill) for preventing plague have been mentioned [5].InShanghan Zabing Lun(Treatise on Cold Damage Diseases),written during the period of the Eastern Han dynasty(the third century C.E.),the concept of Warm disease(plague) has been proposed and several prescriptions for Warm diseases have been mentioned [6].InZhou Hou Bei Ji Fang(Handy Therapies for Emergencies,

284 C.E.-354 C.E.),written by an Eastern Jin dynasty physician Ge Hong,a treatment method for malaria using Qinghao (Artemisiae Annuae Herba)has been mentioned: “A handful of Qinghao(Artemisiae Annuae Herba),soaked in 2 liters of water and ground into juice,then take the juice for oral use.” This treatment recommendation inspired Tu Youyou’s notion that high temperatures must be avoided in the extraction process of bioactive plant compounds,thus,a low-boiling-point solvent extraction method is now used in modern applications [7,8].InDou Ke Jin Jing Fu Ji Jie(Smallpox Treatments Collection,1727 C.E.),it was clearly mentioned that the vaccination methods originated during the Longqing emperor period of the Ming Dynasty (1567 C.E.-1572 C.E.),furthermore,Huang Baijia (the son of the Ming dynasty’s famous thinker Huang Zongxi) wrote that a man named Fu Sichuan was known for his vaccination technique[9].During the early Qing dynasty (1636 C.E.-1722 C.E.),the Chinese population plummeted due to a smallpox epidemic [10].Feng(hemiplegic paralysis),Lao (tuberculosis),Gu (cirrhosis ascites),Ge(esophageal cancer) are known as the four major incurable diseases in TCM theory.Great writer Lu Xun recorded in the articleFather’s Diseasethat his father died of cirrhosis and ascites,the doctor at that time used broken drumhead (In Chinese,the pronunciations of drum and Gu are same) in the prescription,and Lu Xun’s father eventually died without any relief[11].

On January 31,2020,Xinhua Perspectives learned from the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica,Chinese Academy of Science,that a joint study by this institute and the Wuhan Virus Institute has found that the proprietary Chinese medicine Shuanghuanglian oral liquid can inhibit the new coronavirus,but the study does not include any animal experiments [12].In addition,in the“National Annual Report on Adverse Drug Reaction Monitoring (2014),” adverse drug reaction due to Shuanghuanglian oral liquid was ranked among the top five adverse drug reactions caused by oral preparations of proprietary Chinese medicines [13].At present,Shuanghuanglian oral liquid is being clinically studied in the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center and Tongji Hospital,which is affiliated to the Huazhong University of Science and Technology[14].