5.3.6 Herbal medications
Based on data mining, the Traditional Chinese Medicine was also regarded
as an alternative method for the treatment of COVID-19 disease in
high-risk populations. During the COVID-19 outbreak in China, Chinese
herbal drugs such as Astragali Radix, Glycyrrhizae Radix Et
Rhizoma, Atractylodis Macrocephalae Rhizoma, Saposhnikoviae Radix,
Lonicerae Japonicae Flos and Fructus forsythia were commonly
harnessed for improving the treatment effect of COVID-19 infections.
Herbal medications can offer a more effective and personalized treatment
by adjusting the specific medicine for each patient based on the
disparate syndromes (DU et al., 2020). Previous studies also indicated
that the patients with SARS-CoV infection have benefited from TCM
treatment (Liu et al., 2012), involving amelioration of adverse effects
of tranditional therapeutics. Some TCM such as Lianhuaqingwen capsules
exert anti-viral replication and anti-inflammatory activity against
SARS-CoV-2 in vitro (Runfeng et al., 2020). However, the
experimental study on the efficacy of herbal medicines lags behind the
clinical application of traditional Chinese medicine in the COVID-19
treatment (Yang et al., 2020b). Hence, rigorous clinical trials on large
populations should be carried out to identify the potential therapeutic
efficacy of herbal medications.