Traditional Chinese medical practitioners have given herbal remedies to Hong Kong Sars patients along with Western drugs, and public hospital officials said more patients might get similar treatment despite uncertainties about whether it helps.
The experts from mainland China visited 23 patients, and while two refused to take the herbs in conjunction with Western antiviral drugs and steroids, 21 received a combination of the two treatments.
Five of the patients have now been discharged and one died — numbers that are in line with Hong Kong’s broader experience with severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars). So far, 1213 people have recovered from Sars in Hong Kong but 251 have died.
Professor Lin Lin and Professor Yang Zhimin, both from the Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said the herbal treatments can work, although the rest of the patients are still hospitalised.
Western experts say there is no scientific proof that traditional remedies are effective and remain sceptical about any benefits. Meeting with local journalists, Lin and Yang declined to say which herbs they gave to the Sars patients.
Hong Kong’s hospital authority invited the herbalists to assist in the fight against Sars — the first time that public hospitals there have allowed traditional medicines to be part of their official treatment. Herbs have been used previously on a voluntary basis for some patients or in research by universities.
An executive manager of professional services at the Hospital Authority, Dr Choy Khai-meng, declined to say whether the herbs were helping anybody. But he said the mainland experts have been asked to stay for another three months so officials can learn more.
Some of the patients who received the combination Chinese-Western treatment did better, Choy said, but there is no evidence to explain why.
“I think we are not making any comment that it is Chinese medicine or Western medicine that has led to this result,” he said.
