Chinese medicine for the treatment of SARS
Citation: Leung, PC. The efficacy of Chinese medicine for SARS: a review of Chinese publications after the crisis. American Journal of Chinese Medicine 2007; 35(4): 575-81
What is this? Like COVID-19, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is an acute respiratory disease caused by a coronavirus. Chinese medicine was used to treat patients with these earlier coronaviruses and might be considered as a treatment for COVID-19.
In this review, the author searched for research into the use of Chinese medicine for SARS. There is no information on any restrictions they applied in their search. The article was published in 2007 but the date of the search is not reported. The author identified 20 publications that they judged to be of high enough quality to summarize in the review.
What works: Nothing noted.
What doesn’t work: Nothing noted.
What’s uncertain: Although some research suggested benefits from the use of Chinese medicine for patients with SARS, the low quality of the available research means that the effects are uncertain.