Pakistan conducts ‘successful’ trial of Chinese herbal medicine for COVID-19
KARACHI: Health authorities have announced the completion of a successful clinical trial of Chinese traditional herbal medicine for treating COVID-19.
Karachi University’s International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS) announced the successful completion of clinical trials.
In this regard, a ceremony was held on Monday attended by Director ICCBS, Dr Iqbal Choudhary, representative of the Chinese embassy and others. Dr Ataur Rehman, a member of the PM’s task force, and Sindh’s health minister Dr Azra Pechuho joined the event virtually.
The Chinese medicine, Jinhua Qinggan Granules (JHQG) manufactured by Juxiechang (Beijing) pharmaceutical Co Ltd, is already being used in the treatment of COVID-19 patients in China.
“Since it was tried on patients with different variants of COVID-19, we expect it to be effective on Omicron as on other variants,” Professor Iqbal Chaudhry, director of the International Center for Chemical and Biological Science (ICCBS) where trials were conducted, told reporters.
The trials were conducted on 300 patients who were treated at home, and would work on mild to moderate COVID-19 cases, Dr Raza Shah, principal investigator in the trials, told reporters.
He added that the efficacy rate was around 82.67% and patients aged between 18 to 60 years were involved in the trial. The trials were approved by the Drug Regulatory Authority Pakistan.
