Herbal medicine for treatment of children diagnosed with COVID-19: A review of guidelines.
Lin Ang, Hye Won Lee, Anna Kim and 3 others
PMID 32379639WHAT IT FOUND
Chinese provincial guidelines recommended 13 herbal formulae for children with COVID-19, including oral decoctions and one enema.
They describe what was recommended, not evidence that these treatments work.
Key findings
01Only 3 traditional medicine guidelines from mainland China provided treatment measures for pediatric COVID-19.
02The guidelines recommended 13 herbal formulae, of which 12 were oral decoction prescriptions and 1 was a decoction enema prescription.
03The recommended formulae included 56 herbs, and 23 herbs were used 3 or more times.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
Only 3 provincial guidelines included pediatric treatment, so the review does not represent a broad national or international set of recommendations. The review did not test whether the herbal formulae worked; it only summarized what guidelines recommended. The search stopped at March 25, 2020, so later guideline updates were not included. No patients were studied, so the paper cannot show any clinical outcome from these treatments.
Declared interests
The study was supported by the Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine, and the authors declared no conflict of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the herbal formulae as proven treatments for children with COVID-19. The review summarizes guideline recommendations and states that there was no direct evidence on efficacy.