Traditional Chinese medicine and H5N1

Traditional Chinese medicines have contributed a lot to the recovery of China's latest bird flu patient, said a Chinese medical expert on Saturday.

The patient, surnamed Jiang, 31, was discharged on August 2 from the Donghu Hospital after being treated here for about 50 days, in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province.

During the early period of Jiang's treatment, doctors used a kind of soup made by ginseng, a medicinal herb, to clear toxic heat in his body, said Zhou Boping, head of the hospital.

Hirudo, a medicine in China, was also used to activate blood circulation against stasis in the second phase, said Zhou.

Other Chinese medicines such as Cordyceps Sinesis, a Chinese caterpillar fungus, were also used to promote the function of lungs, according to Zhou.

The use of traditional Chinese medicines worked well along with other forms of treatment, said Zhou, also head of the medical team of experts for treating Jiang.

On June 15, the Ministry of Health confirmed that Jiang had contracted the H5N1 strain of avian influenza. Jiang was sent to the Donghu Hospital on June 9.

Jiang had been to a local market where live poultry was sold several times before developing symptoms of fever and pneumonia on June 3. He was critically ill when he got to hospital, and many internal organs showed signs of failure and his lungs were severely infected by different kinds of anti-drug virus, according to Zhou.

But he had been doing well since late June. Examinations showed the avian influenza virus was no longer in his system by June 22. By July 5, he was able to breathe without the use of a respirator.

China's Health Ministry confirmed on Tuesday that the country's first human case of H5N1 bird flu occurred in November 2003. Since then, the total number of the country's human cases of bird flu has been registered at 20, among them seven recovered.

Source: Xinhua