Abstract
Background: Acute infectious diseases constitute the most prevalent public health emergency (PHE) in China. Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) has long been used in the treatment of acute infections, but the overall evidence of its benefit and harm has not been comprehensively and systematically evaluated. Methods: We searched CBM, CNKI, Wanfang, PubMed, Cochrane Library, embase and preprint platforms to retrieve systematic reviews (SRs) on CHM for acute infectious. Participants with COVID-19, SARS, H1N1, tuberculosis, bacillary dysentery, mumps, herpangina, hand-foot-and-mouth disease (HFMD), and other acute infectious diseases were included. Interventional group consisting of patients treated with CHM combined with Western medicine or CHM alone. The AMSTAR 2 tool was used to assess the methodological quality of the retrieved studies. Information on interventions, control measures and outcomes of the included studies was extracted, and meta-analyses were qualitatively synthesized. Results: A total of 51 SRs and meta-analyses were eligible for this overview, including 19 for COVID-19, 11 for hand-foot-and-mouth disease, 8 for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), 4 for tuberculosis, 3 for mumps, 2 for bacillary dysentery, 2 for H1N1 influenza and 2 for herpangina. Six systematic reviews were of high quality, all of which were on the use of CHM for COVID-19; 24 were of moderate quality; 10 were of low quality; and 11 were of very low quality. CHM appeared to have potential benefits in improving clinical symptoms and signs for most infections with an acceptable safety profile, and the clinical evidence of the benefits of CHM for acute respiratory infections such as COVID-19, SARS and H1N1 seems more sufficient than that for other acute infections. Conclusion: Overall, CHM, both decoction and Chinese patent medicine, used alone or in combination with conventional medicine may offer potential benefits to relieving symptoms of people with acute respiratory infections. Full reporting of disease typing, staging, and severity, and intervention details is further required for a better evidence translation to the responses for PHE. Future CHM research should focus mainly on the specific aspects of respiratory infections such as its single use for mild infections, and the adjunct administration for sever infections, and individual CHM prescriptions for well-selected outcomes should be prioritized.
Highlights
Public health emergencies (PHEs) are extraordinary events that are determined to constitute public health risks to other states through the international spread of disease and that potentially require a coordinated international response (World Health Organization, 2005)
The highest number of very low-grade Systematic review (SR) reported on hand-foot-and-mouth disease (HFMD) (n = 7, 63.64%) (Ding et al, 2013; Wang et al, 2013; Xiong et al, 2013; Zhang et al, 2014; Zhang and Wei, 2014; He, 2020; Yan et al, 2020), followed by herpangina (n = 2, 100.00%) (Lu et al, 2013; Liu et al, 2016), COVID-19 (n = 1, 5.26%) (Liu and Dong, 2021), and mumps (n = 1, 33.33%) (Zhang, 2016)
Specific to Lianhuaqingwen Capsule, a proprietary Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) drug, a moderate quality SR involving seven Randomised controlled trial (RCT) (Wang S. et al, 2020) identified the CHM combined with conventional therapy vs. conventional therapy to treat the COVID-19 patients, and the results suggested that the CHM combined with conventional therapy could improve the appearance of pulmonary CT lesions, shorten the fever duration and the time in hospital, and reduce the possibility being worsening
Summary
Public health emergencies (PHEs) are extraordinary events that are determined to constitute public health risks to other states through the international spread of disease and that potentially require a coordinated international response (World Health Organization, 2005). Acute infectious diseases are among the most common PHEs (World Health Organization, 2017). In China, Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) has a long history of treating acute infections such as smallpox, plague, scarlet fever, cholera, typhoid fever, and malaria (Jiang and Wen, 2021). In late Ming China, with the further deepening of the understanding of infectious diseases in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), Systematic Differentiation of Warm Pathogen disease authored by Doctor Jutong Wu, systematically expounded the general laws of the occurrence, development, evolution and treatment of infectious diseases, in which, Yinqiao Powder and Sangju Drink, was first documented, and continues to be used for acute upper respiratory disease. Acute infectious diseases constitute the most prevalent public health emergency (PHE) in China. Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) has long been used in the treatment of acute infections, but the overall evidence of its benefit and harm has not been comprehensively and systematically evaluated
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
