Medical Chinese

China's national medical product regulator has granted market approval to two antigen test kits that can detect COVID-19 and provide results within 20 minutes.

Developed by two biotech companies in Guangzhou and Beijing respectively, these products are the country's first approved antigen test kits for COVID-19, the National Medical Products Administration said in a statement on Thursday.

The testing tools can quickly detect positive cases when the viral load is high during the acute infection period. They can be used for early triage and rapid management of suspected patients.

As a supplement to current COVID-19 detection methods, antigen testing cannot be used alone to identify infection but should be combined with nucleic acid tests, imaging and other diagnostic information to determine the infection status, according to the statement.

It noted that further nucleic acid testing is needed for both positive and negative antigen resul ... Read more »

In a recently-published study, Chinese and German researchers have suggested that Shufeng Jiedu capsules, a patented herbal drug composed of eight medicinal plants, might be "a promising herbal therapy for moderate COVID-19."

The scientific paper was published online on Oct. 22 by Phytomedicine, a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal. The research team included Xia Lu of Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center affiliated to Fudan University, Shi Yujing of the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Su Jie of Shanghai Tech University, and Thomas Friedemann of HanseMerkur Center for Traditional Chinese Medicine at the University Medical Center in Germany.

There is currently no confirmed cure or vaccine for COVID-19. But the use of Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine (TCM) to combat COVID-19 got international attention because it was regularly used during the pandemic, the authors said in the study. TCM was used successfully for the treatment of SARS in 2003 a ... Read more »