Speaking at her daily press briefing on Thursday, the chief executive announced that the government would step up efforts in using Chinese medicine to help treat Covid patients. She stated that Hong Kong has already requested mainland China to send in a team of Chinese medicine experts to assist in enhancing the city's effectiveness in fighting the pandemic.
Hospital Authority chief executive Dr Tony Ko expressed that the medicines provide relief to Covid-19 patients. Chinese medicine, in particular, helps control symptoms, such as sore throat, cough, digestive problems, and fatigue headaches, especially with chronically ill patients.
In April 2020, Hong Kong launched a special Chinese medicine outpatient clinic to provide Chinese medicine services to Covid-19 recovered patients. So far, 4580 recovered patients have used the services, and 14,300 consultation sessions have been provided. During the fifth wave, hundreds of recovered patients used the services. The government says that they also extended help to the Chinese medicine sector in using technology to offer self remote consultation services.
Health official states that they understand the need for this service and have also extended professional support to members of the public in the correct use of Chinese medicine. The government have also included proprietary Chinese medicine in the distributed resource kits for those isolating and quarantining at home.
Currently, two Covid-19 oral drugs, Molnupiravir from MSD and Paxlovid from Pfizer, are also being prescribed to Covid-19 infected patients in health care facilities and hospitals.
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