The health authorities of Pakistan announced on Monday that they have successfully completed clinical trials of a traditional Chinese herbal medicine for the treatment of Covid-19, as the South Asian nation enters its fifth wave of the pandemic driven by the Omicron variant.
Pakistan health authorities successfully test Chinese herbal medicine for Covid-19.
The Chinese medicine, Jinhua Qinggan Granules, produced by Juxiechang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Beijing), is already being used to treat Covid-19 patients in China.
“Since it has been tested on patients with various Covid-19 variants, we hope it will be effective against Omicron as it has been with other variants,” said Professor Iqbal Chaudhry, director of the International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), where the trials were conducted, during a press briefing.
The trials were conducted on 300 patients treated at home and are expected to be effective for mild to moderate Covid-19 cases. Dr. Raza Shah, the principal investigator of the trial, added that the efficacy rate is approximately 82.67%.
The trials have been approved by the Pakistan Drug Regulatory Authority.
On Monday, Pakistan recorded 4,340 new Covid-19 cases, the highest number in a 24-hour period in three months. Karachi, the largest city, reported a positivity rate of 39.39% over the weekend, the highest to date.
“In the past seven days, Covid cases in Pakistan have increased by 170% while the death toll has also risen by 62%,” stated the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), the agency overseeing the pandemic response, on Monday.
