Pharmacies in Beijing that AFP visited were sold out of "Shuanghuanglian", a traditional remedy Chinese scientists claimed could "inhibit" the coronavirus (AFP Photo/NOEL CELIS) |
Beijing (AFP) - A claim by Chinese scientists that a liquid made with honeysuckle and flowering plants could help fight the deadly coronavirus has sparked frenzied buying of the traditional medicine, but doubts quickly emerged.
As the
death toll from the SARS-like pathogen sweeping the country continues to rise,
shoppers have swamped pharmacies in search of "Shuanghuanglian".
The rush
came after influential state media outlet Xinhua reported Friday that the
esteemed Chinese Academy of Sciences had found the concoction "can
inhibit" the virus.
Videos
shared online showed long lines of people in surgical masks lining up at night
outside drug stores, purportedly in hope of snapping up the product, despite
official advice that people avoid public gatherings to prevent infection.
It quickly
sold out both online and at brick-and-mortar stores, but responses to the
remedy's supposed efficacy have ranged from enthusiasm to scepticism on Weibo,
China's Twitter-like social media platform.
And state
media sounded a more cautionary note on Saturday, with broadcaster CCTV publishing
an interview with Zhang Boli, one of the researchers leading outbreak
containment efforts, who warned of potential side effects from the medicine.
Several
countries have barred Chinese travellers due to fears about the coronavirus
(AFP Photo/Mark RALSTON)
|
The
People's Daily newspaper, a government mouthpiece, said experts advised against
taking traditional remedies without professional guidance.
But the
claim comes as Beijing looks to incorporate traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)
into its nationwide fight against the virus, which has killed more than 300
people and infected over 14,000 in the country. On Sunday the Philippines
reported the first death outside of China.
Researchers
at the state-run academy, a top government think tank, are also studying the
potential use of a plant commonly known as Japanese knotweed to alleviate
symptoms.
The
National Health Commission on Tuesday said TCM practitioners were among nearly
6,000 reinforcement medical personnel being sent to Wuhan in Hubei province,
ground zero of the outbreak.
'No
difference'
The
strategy has reignited fierce and long-running debate about the efficacy of
TCM, which has a history going back 2,400 years and remains popular in
modern-day China.
Marc
Freard, a member of the Chinese Medicine Academic Council of France, told AFP
he believed traditional formulations could be used to treat people with
symptoms ranging from fever to thick phlegm.
Countries
or territories with confirmed cases of the new coronavirus (AFP Photo)
|
But he
warned that many remedies on the market were of questionable quality and
admitted that TCM "lacks scientific standards of efficacy" because it
relied on "individualised treatment".
Traditional
medicines were widely used in China in conjunction with Western methods during
the 2003 epidemic of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which killed
774 people worldwide.
But a 2012
study in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews found combining Chinese
and Western medicines "made no difference" in battling the disease.
Nationalism
The Chinese
government has increasingly promoted traditional medicine abroad in recent
years, often with nationalistic undertones.
Beijing
issued its first white paper on TCM in 2016, laying out plans to build medicine
centres and dispatch practitioners to developing countries in Africa and
Southeast Asia.
President
Xi Jinping has called TCM a "treasure of Chinese civilisation" and
said at a meeting in October that it should be given as much weight as other
treatments.
Surgical
masks are being worn across China as a preventative measure
against the
coronavirus (AFP Photo/NOEL CELIS)
|
China is
"working hard to spread the message internationally about its traditional
culture", and medicine is a part of this, Freard said.
In 2019 the
World Health Organization (WHO) even added Chinese medicine to its
"International Classification of Diseases" -- a reference document
for medical trends and global health statistics -- after years of campaigning
by Beijing.
But the
move was slammed by members of the scientific community, with the European
Academies' Science Advisory Council calling the decision "a major
problem" due to the lack of evidence-based practice.
The WHO did
not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment.
Fang
Shimin, a prominent writer in China known for his campaigns against academic
fraud, told AFP he believes the government's promotion of traditional medicine
"panders to nationalism and has nothing to do with science".
It is an
enormous industry in China worth more than $130 billion in 2016 -- a third of
the country's entire medical industry -- according to state news agency Xinhua.
A Chinese woman infected with the new coronavirus showed a dramatic improvement after she was treated with a cocktail of anti-virals used to treat flu and HIV, Thailand's health ministry said— AFP news agency (@AFP) February 2, 2020
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