Chinese scientists yesterday unveiled a list of eight types of traditional Chinese medicine that have been shown to play a unique role in helping reduce the side-effects of Western medicine and improve the immune system of patients infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
The list included cordate houttuynia injections and radix isatidis (isatis root), which are effective in curbing inflammation of the lungs.
Other traditional medicines on the list can lessen fever, chills, headaches, muscular pain, malaise, diarrhoea, a dry cough and a lack of phlegm.
The list is the first announced by the Science and Technology Group of the National Headquarters for SARS Prevention and Control since the group was set up on April 25.
Sources with the group, headed by Science and Technology Minister Xu Guanhua, said the eight medicines were chosen from a longer list of 30 medicines that have already been used in clinical treatment in SARS-hit Beijing and Guangdong Province in South China.
Large-scale animal tests have been conducted by 150 renowned traditional medicine doctors and scientists from Beijing University of Chinese Medicine and other research organizations.
They have used 4,500 mice and 700 domesticated rabbits during 17 days of extensive tests.
An official with the group said more research is still needed to get an ever clearer picture of what traditional medicine can do to further help SARS sufferers.
Doctors and scientists said the ideal way to treat SARS patients is to combine traditional Chinese and Western medicine.
The difference between Western and traditional Chinese medicine is that the former is designed to directly attack the virus, while the Chinese variety aims to help restore a patient's immune system, they said.
Zhou Ping'an, a doctor of traditional medicine for nearly 40 years, said: "From my clinical experience, I have found no good curative effects can be achieved in treating SARS patients when we simply apply Western medicine or traditional Chinese medicine alone."
The State Food and Drug Administration has opened a "fast track" for new drugs to speed up the approval process for SARS medicine. Cao Wenzhuang, director of the administration's registration department, said: "The new drugs will be put into production immediately after the clinical trial is approved by the evaluation committee."
Researchers at China's No 4 Military Medical University have discovered nine polypeptides and 13 antibodies that can restrain the coronavirus which causes SARS. Three of the polypeptides have passed tests by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention of China, reported the People's Daily Overseas Edition yesterday.
(China Daily May 23, 2003)
