Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/ BEIJING: As Covid-19 rips through China’s vast population, making millions sick and fueling a shortage of medicines, many Chinese are turning to old-school traditional medication to counter the pains and aches caused by the virus.
President of China Xi Jinping has promoted traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) since the pandemic’s start, while health officials have also highlighted its “vital role” in the fight against the virus.
Encompassing a range of treatments from massages and herbal remedies to diets and acupuncture, TCM has been used for hundreds of years to treat all manner of diseases. Critics say it is ineffective and pseudoscientific in treating actual illness, and there is little scientific evidence to support claims about its efficacy. However, thousands of people in China use it, often in combination with modern medicine, to minimize symptoms of Covid.
Chinese consultant
38-year-old Yu Lei, a Beijing consultant, had a fever due to Covid. He prepared a tea with herbs reputed with anti-inflammatory properties featuring Chinese cinnamon, peony roots, jujubes, ginger, and licorice. “We often use Chinese medicines in our family, and after drinking the herbal tea, it subsided his fever,” he shared with AFP.
According to followers like Yu, traditional Chinese medicines have fewer side effects and operate slower to regulate the body, rather than Western drugs that “attack the symptoms but rarely the source of the sickness.” Beijing has asked regional leaders to “publicize vigorously and objectively the role and efficacy of TCM brews in the treatment of Covid-19.”
Ben Cowling, professor emeritus of epidemiology at the University of Hong Kong School of Public Health, contrasted this and stated to AFP: “Due to the lack of scientific trials, we are unsure of the efficacy of these treatments. I wouldn’t rule out the idea that some of them work, but I’d also leave open the chance that some could even be detrimental.”
The only Covid therapies supported by chemical medications are those that the World Health Organization advises. In response to AFP’s inquiry regarding TCM, the organization recommended that nations “collect trustworthy facts and statistics on traditional medicine practices and products.”
In China, Western medicine is still the treatment of choice, although supporters of TCM claim that combining the two helps treat Covid-19. They “complement each other and can alleviate fever, stiff joints, weariness, sore throat, cough, and other symptoms,” according to Liu Qingquan, head of the Beijing Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital.
Since the pandemic’s beginning, experts have used television to extol TCM, with one product in particular—Lianhua Qingwen—benefiting from aggressive government promotion.
A Chinese medicine doctor in Beijing, Lan Jirui, told AFP: “It’s the same logic as Western medicine. If the drug is bought on the doctor’s prescription, it will probably be effective. If it is bought randomly from the pharmacy, then maybe not.”
