Covid-19 Management: Traditional Chinese Medicine Vs. Western Medicinal Antiviral Drugs, A Review And Meta-Analysis

SARS-CoV-2 causing COVID-19 spread to more than 200 countries with 109 M infected patients and 2.41 M deaths (6.98% mortality rate). Currently, there is no approved drug or vaccine available to treat COVID-19 patients, though some combinations of already used broad-spectrum Western medicines, such as antibiotics, antivirals, and interferons are exploited against SARS-CoV-2. Among the Western medicines used, Chloroquine, Hydroxychloroquine, Chloroquine Phosphate, Remdesivir, and Umifenovir (Arbidol) were the most effective antivirals against SARS-CoV-2 at high or frequent dose. These drugs limited the viral infection by inhibiting attachment of virus to ACE2 receptor of human cell or by interfering and terminating the viral genome replication, but also induced severe adverse effects on the patients. Due to high and frequent dose of antivirals, patients reported with Hepatic, renal, and cardiac complications along with vomiting, diarrhea, muscle cramps, skin complications, anemia, abdominal pain, bleeding from nose, nausea, swelling of legs and ankles, hearing, and mental complications. Different vaccines are in trail phases might take long time to be available for COVID-19 patients, so an alternate therapy is required with no or minimal adverse effects. Chinese health workers significantly recovered the COVID-19 patients (92.4% recovery rate) by using their Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). The current review article contains details about the adverse effects of certain Western medicines, like antivirals on the COVID-19 patients and the efficacy of therapeutic herbal Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for clinical recovery of COVID-19 patients in China.