Traditional Chinese Medicine: A path worth exploring in the fight against COVID-19?

By the end of December 2019, a new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 capable of causing pneumonia and respiratory failure emerged in Wuhan, China. The disease resulting from the virus was named COVID-19. [ 1 ], [ 2 ] Despite the efforts to contain the spread of the virus, by March 2020, the WHO declared the world is facing a full-scale pandemic. TCM has been practiced for more than 5000 years and has gathered knowledge throughout the millennia in the fight against epidemic and pandemic threats. [ 3 ], [ 4 ] In this study, 69 TCM entities, as well as eight formulas, were tested in vitro to observe any possible antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2 using Vero E6 cells as host cells for the virus. In conclusion, four entities and a formula showed remarkable antiviral activities against SARS-CoV-2: Moutan cortex, Glycyrrhizae radix et rhizoma, Armeniacae semen amarum, Cinnamomum ramulus , and Qingfei Paidu Decoction. The Qingfei Paidu Decoction contains twenty-one herbs and not only such as: Ephedrae herba, Glycyrrhizae radix, Armeniacae semen, Gypsum fibrosum, Cinnamomi ramulus, Alismatis rhizoma, Polyporus, Atractylodis macrocephalae rhizoma, Poria, Bupleuri radix, Scutellariae radix, Pinellinae rhizoma, Zingiberis rhizoma, Asteris radix, Farfarae flos, Belamcandae rhizoma, Asari radix et rhizoma, Dioscoreae rhizoma, Aurantii rructus immaturus, Citri reticulatae pericarpium and Pogostemonis herba. These results support the idea of using TCM as an adjuvant treatment to the western ones in the fight against COVID-19 disease. Fig. 1 Publication History Article published online: 12 December 2022 © 2022. Thieme. All rights reserved. Georg Thieme Verlag KG Rüdigerstraße 14, 70469 Stuttgart, Germany