The State Council Information Office held a press conference at 4, Thursday, Feb 20th, 2020, introducing the efforts of the Central Steering Group to Hubei in guiding and organizing work related to epidemic prevention and control.

Yu Yanhong, member of the Central Steering Group, member of the CPC Leadership Group of the National Health Commission, Secretary of the CPC Leadership Group and Vice Commissioner of the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine was present at the conference. She introduced the TCM work and answered related questions. 

Yu Yanhong: Good afternoon, friends from the media. The CPC Central Committee and the State Council paid great attention to the epidemic prevention and control. Secretary General Xi Jiping instructed clearly that it is necessary to improve the diagnosis and treatment scheme with integrated TCM and western medicine and develop as soon as possible the diagnosis and treatment procedures, effective drugs and methods of saving severe patients. Premier Li Keqiang emphasized that the integration of TCM and western medicine should be promoted to the in-depth intervention of TCM in the whole diagnosis and treatment. The Central Steering Group paid great attention to the medical work and organized 278 medical teams, with 32,395 medical workers to support Hubei. With the integration of TCM and western medicine should be accepted and the continuously improved diagnosis and treatment scheme the treatment should be given early. Vice Premier Sun Chunlan made efforts to facilitate the medical work and the intervention of TCM in the whole process of the epidemic prevention and control. Today, I would like to mainly introduce the TCM related work.

First, pooling all the resources in the whole TCM system and carrying out medical work immediately. All the resources have been gathered from the national, provincial and city level for unified deployment and allocation. About 3,200 medical workers were sent to support Hubei from the TCM system. Four national TCM teams with 588 members were dispatched to Hubei, stationed in Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital, Leishenshan Hospital, Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine and taking over Jiangxia Cabin Hospital. Senior expert teams were sent to Wuhan to give TCM understanding, diagnosis and treatment through clinical treatment and observation. With national TCM masters’ opinions and repeated reviews, the TCM treatment scheme was developed and included in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth national diagnosis and treatment scheme as a guide of the TCM intervention national wide.

Second, persisting in early intervention, integration of TCM and western medicine, differentiated treatment, and improving effectiveness. The system and mechanism of in-depth TCM intervention was improved, aiming at more recovery and less mortality. In the quarantine places, TCM intervention was strengthened, by setting up 10 TCM mobile expert teams. The teams paid visits to the rehabilitating patients with mild symptoms in line with the respective appointed areas for each TCM hospital in their own districts, cities and provinces. In the cabin hospitals, two or three TCM experts were sent to each cabin hospital to carry out standard TCM treatment. In the designated hospitals, the joint consultation system was formulated and 12 national expert teams for severe cases were set up. The teams, composed of TCM and western medicine experts, made rounds in the designated hospitals and thus developed the integrated TCM and western medicine scheme of diagnosis and treatment. Meanwhile, the joint consultation of TCM and western medicine was introduced to such designated hospitals as the Sino-French New City Campus of Tongji hospital, Lung Hospital and Leishenshan Hospital. 

At present, the epidemic prevention and control has achieved interim progress with the TCM intervention. With the bigger extent and depth of TCM intervention, TCM and western medicine was closely coordinated for solutions to key problems. A few formulas and TCM drugs proved quite effective for COVID-19. We will further refine the integrated mechanism of TCM and western medicine and play the role of TCM to safeguard the health and life of the people.

Reporter with Macao Daily: There are online articles about the effect of TCM on COVID-19. Could you tell us more about the current efficacy of the integrated treatment of TCM and western medicine? Thank you.

Yu Yanhong: It is an eminent advantage of China's health cause to adhering to equal importance of TCM and western medicine and to promote their complementary and coordinated development. In the treatment of COVID-19, we made the early intervention of TCM and stuck to the integration of TCM and western medicine, and remarkable results have been achieved. A large number of clinical practices have confirmed that the effect of integrated TCM and western medicine treatment of COVID-19 is positive.

In mild cases, it can quickly improve symptoms such as fever, cough, sore throat, poor appetite, and fatigue. It can shorten the hospital stay and reduce the development of mild to severe symptoms. In terms of severe cases, in addition to improving main symptoms and related indicators, it can also reduce the development of severe to critical symptoms, promote the transition from severe to mild symptoms, reduce mortality rate, and increase the number of lymphocytes, a key indicator of TCM intervention of treating severe cases.

Oriented by "clinical emergency, applicability and utility ", the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine launched an emergency response program to speed up the clinical screening of effective TCM formulas and drugs. According to the results of clinical observation, NACTM and National Health Commission jointly promoted the use of Qingfei Paidu Decoction in the whole country. The clinical observation in 10 provinces has further confirmed that the Decoction has a good therapeutic effect. The Decoction has been promoted as a universal formula in the sixth version of the national diagnosis and treatment scheme of COVID-19.

The Ministry of Science and Technology has launched two major TCM projects. The study carried out the team led by Zhang Boli, an academician, and Prof. Liu Qingquan in Wuhan on 102 cases of clinical control study. It showed that the treatment of mild patients with integrated TCM and western medicine shortened the time for clinical symptoms to disappear by 2 days, the time to return to normal temperature by 1.7 days, and the average hospital stay by 2.2 days. CT images showed improvement by 22%; clinical recovery rate increased by 33%; the rate from moderate symptoms to severe symptoms lowered by 27.4%, and the lymphocyte increased by 70%.

The clinical study of the team in Wuhan, led by Huang Luqi, an academician, showed that the treatment of severe patients with integrated TCM and western medicine reduced the average hospitalization and the time of nucleic acid negative conversion by more than 2 days. The integrated TCM and western medicine treatment significantly increased blood oxygen saturation, shortened ventilator use, reduced lymphocyte percentage. The physical and chemical indicators such as Lactate Dehydrogenase have improved significantly.

The integrated TCM and western medicine treatment, applied in the provinces such as Shanghai, Guangdong and Zhejiang, also achieved good and inspiring effects. 

Reporter with EIAHK: Everyone is very concerned about the current epidemic situation. How can we improve the recovery rate and reduce the mortality rate? What role can TCM play in this regard? Thank you.

Yu Yanhong: The treatment practice of COVID-19 shows that early intervention of TCM and integrated TCM and western medicine treatment is an important method to improve recovery rate and reduce mortality rate. It is also a major feature of the treatment of COVID-19. Next, the role of TCM will be played from the following three aspects.

The first is to persist in early diagnosis and treatment. There are two things to be done early. One is early intervention, which is mainly aimed at close contacts and the vulnerable. By taking TCM, they can improve health and immunity, prevent and reduce infections. The other is early treatment, that is, early treatment with TCM. Once the treatment of mild patients is effective, severe cases will be less, hence improving the recovery rate.

The second is to persist in the integration of TCM and western medicine. It is necessary to further promote the joint consultation of TCM and western medicine, to give full play to the advantages of both syndrome differentiation and treatment of TCM and antivirus and respiratory support of western medicine, so to bring duplicate effects of the two medicines and reduce complications and mortality.

The third is to persist in different measures with different cases. Different methods should be adopted for different stages of prevention, treatment and rehabilitation. The sixth version of the national diagnosis and treatment scheme of COVID-19 is the revision of the previous versions based on the new treatment, observation and optimization. Please follow the scheme to achieve the standard and qualified practices.

Next, We will further implement and refine the integrated mechanism of TCM and western medicine, continuously improve the TCM diagnosis and treatment scheme, so to play a greater role in medical treatment.