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Highlights of traditional Chinese medicine frontline expert advice in the China national guideline for COVID-19.

ABSTRACT: Introduction:The World Health Organization has declared the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as a pandemic on 11 March 2020, after the number of confirmed cases outside China increased 13-fold. As the epicentre of the initial outbreak, China has been updating the National COVID-19 Diagnostic and Treatment Guideline with up-to-date information about the disease. To facilitate the implementation of integrative Chinese-Western Medicine in COVID-19 management, Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been recommended in recent editions of the national guideline. Methods:The national guideline summarised the opinions and frontline experience of medical experts across the country to provide by far the best management for COVID-19. We extracted the case definition and clinical classifications of COVID-19 in China along with relevant TCM treatments cited in the seventh edition of the guideline, with an intend to disseminate practical information to TCM practitioners and researchers around the world. Results:We presented the most recent case definition, clinical classifications, and relevant TCM treatments of COVID-19 in accordance to recommendations of the Chinese guideline. TCM treatments are stratified into two groups based on patients' disease status. Four types of Chinese patent medicines are recommended for suspected COVID-19 cases. Several herbal formulae are recommended for confirmed COVID-19 cases according to their clinical classification and TCM pattern diagnoses. Two herbal formulae are also recommended for rehabilitation of recovering cases. Conclusion:To control the waves of COVID-19 outbreak, countries must ensure the adherence of their citizens to local public health measures. Medical professionals should diagnose and treat patients according to up-to-date guidelines. Future evaluation of the outcomes of implementing TCM recommendations will strengthen the evidence base for COVID-19 management for the sake of public health and the internationalisation of TCM.

SUBMITTER: Ho LTF

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7129866 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Highlights of traditional Chinese medicine frontline expert advice in the China national guideline for COVID-19.

Ho Leonard T F LTF Chan Karina K H KKH Chung Vincent C H VCH Leung Ting Hung TH

European journal of integrative medicine 20200403

<h4>Introduction</h4>The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as a pandemic on 11 March 2020, after the number of confirmed cases outside China increased 13-fold. As the epicentre of the initial outbreak, China has been updating the National COVID-19 Diagnostic and Treatment Guideline with up-to-date information about the disease. To facilitate the implementation of integrative Chinese-Western Medicine in COVID-19 management, Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) ha ...[more]

PMID: 32292529

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Project description:Background:Traditional, complementary, and alternative medicine (TCAM) has attracted increasing attention in developed countries, but its mainstream status in China, the home of TCAM, is unclear. Over the period of 2004-2016, we analyze the health resources and health resource utilization of traditional medicine in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) hospitals in China. Methods:Over 2004-2016, we obtained data from all TCM hospitals in all Chinese provinces to create a hospital-based, longitudinal dataset. TCM health resources and their utilization were measured by two outcome variables: (1) primary outcome variables comprising the proportion of TCM physicians, TCM pharmacists, revenue from TCM drugs, and TCM prescriptions and (2) the secondary outcome variables, as proxies of westernization for TCM hospitals, comprising the number of medical equipment above RMB 10,000 and the proportion of surgery in inpatient visits. We used linear regression models with hospital-fixed effects to analyze time trends for the outcome variables. Results:The number of public TCM hospitals remained stable from 2004 to 2016, while the number of private TCM hospitals increased from 294 in 2004 to 1560 in 2016. There was a small percentage increase in the proportion of TCM physicians (0.280%), TCM pharmacists (0.298%), and revenue from Chinese medicines (0.331%) and TCM prescriptions (1.613%) per hospital per year. Chinese drugs accounted for less than a half of the total drug prescriptions, and accordingly, just one-third of the drug revenue was from Chinese medicines at TCM hospitals. The proportions of physicians, pharmacists, revenue from Chinese drug sales, and traditional medicine prescriptions never reach the 60% benchmark target for mainstream in TCM hospitals. As proxies for Western medicine practices in TCM hospitals, the number of medical equipment above RMB 10,000 rapidly rose by over 13 percent per hospital per year, but the proportion of inpatient surgeries declined by 0.830 percentage points per hospital per year, reflecting a mixed trend in the use of Western medicine practices. Conclusion:For the 2004-2016 period, traditional medicine, although making progress towards the mainstream benchmark of 60% TCM services, was still not mainstream at TCM hospitals.

Project description:BackgroundTraditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an integral part of mainstream medicine in China, with theories and practices that are completely different from modern medicine. TCM should not be ignored or confused with modern medicine in the analysis of the Chinese health care system, including the analysis of mobile health (mHealth) apps. To date, differences between TCM apps and modern medicine apps have not be systematically investigated.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to systematically compare the quality of apps for TCM and modern medicine in China.MethodsIn December 2020, we searched iOS (iTunes) and Android (Tencent, Oppo, and Huawei app stores) platforms for all mHealth apps and then categorized them as TCM or modern medicine apps if they were included in the final analysis. The included apps were downloaded on smartphones and assessed by 2 reviewers on the following 4 aspects: (1) data in the app stores, including user ratings, download counts, cost, target users, and year of last update; (2) functionality; (3) quality of the app content as determined by the Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS); and (4) analysis of the app privacy and security.ResultsIn total, 658 apps were analyzed, including 261 TCM medicine apps and 397 modern medicine apps. The average download count of modern medicine apps (approximately 5 million) was more than 10 times that of TCM apps (approximately 400,000). Regarding functionalities, 64.7% (257/397) of modern medicine apps provided telemedicine (74/261, 28.4% in TCM apps), 62.7% (249/397) provided registration (70/261, 26.8% in TCM apps), and 45.6% (181/397) provided communication (38/261, 14.6% in TCM apps). A larger proportion of TCM apps provided prescription and medication management (144/261, 55.2% in TCM apps versus 168/397, 42.3% in modern medicine apps). The majority of modern medicine apps (329/397, 82.9%) combined ≥3 functionalities compared with one-third of TCM apps (93/261, 34.6%). We then selected 81 top apps for quality and safety assessment (41 TCM apps and 40 modern medicine apps). Of these, the mean overall MARS score of TCM apps (2.7, SD 0.5) was significantly lower than modern medicine apps (3.6, SD 0.4). Almost all modern medicine apps (38/40, 95%) addressed privacy and security by providing a privacy policy and describing how to protect personal data, but less than half of the TCM apps (18/41, 44%) described this information (P<.001).ConclusionsThe different functionalities reflect the distinct innate characteristics of these two medical systems. Although great progress has been made and the Chinese mHealth market size is large, there still exist many opportunities for future development, especially for TCM.

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Highlights of traditional Chinese medicine frontline expert advice in the China national guideline for COVID-19.

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Highlights of traditional Chinese medicine frontline expert advice in the China national guideline for COVID-19.

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