It’s no time for traditional cures

If we emerge from level four lockdown on schedule this week, we’ll begin the next phase of navigating life in the shadow of Covid-19. It entails the physical distancing and travel restrictions that, in various forms, will end only when a vaccine becomes available that can protect us against this novel coronavirus.

Despite the Herculean effort under way by the scientific community to speed up that process, we are looking at 12 to 18 months before successful clinical trials are followed by production and distribution of billions of vaccine doses.

We will, in the meantime, remain fearful of the disease, despite regaining some of our freedoms.

But now is not the time to resort to pseudoscience to give us comfort.

Despite the efforts of social media networks and health authorities to clamp down on bogus alternative treatments claiming to protect us from – or treat the symptoms – of Covid-19, where there’s a buck to be made, quacks and snake oil salespeople will fill the vacuum.

Regulatory body Medsafe has been alerted to companies pushing herbal treatments here for Covid-19 that aren’t backed up with evidence.

At least one such company was still touting traditional Chinese medicine on its website as a Covid-19 treatment, as I wrote this column.

In particular, it is pushing herbal fumigation, what it describes as ‘‘a therapy in which burning dried herbs, eg, mugwort sticks are placed above particular acupuncture points for a variety of treatment purposes’’.

There’s no reliable evidence that this will prevent you from getting Covid-19 or relieve its symptoms. But the Chinese government’s endorsement of traditional medicine in an effort to tackle the disease has seen herbalists and acupuncturists around the world follow the party line.

They watched from a distance as China’s health ministry dispatched thousands of traditional medicine experts to Hubei province in February and March to treat patients, including at a makeshift hospital in Wuhan.

Traditional treatments are such a part of the culture in China that they sit comfortably alongside conventional treatments, are funded by the government, and covered by health insurance.

That is the prerogative of the Chinese government. But it is also promoting traditional Chinese medicine abroad, particularly in parts of Africa, where it has economic influence through its policy of pouring capital and labour into projects in developing countries.

China’s enthusiasm for traditional medicine could have been the genesis of the disaster that originated at that Wuhan wet market. The trade in wild animals that scientists fear has helped these dangerous viruses emerge, has served strong demand for bear bile and pangolin scales. The Chinese have used rhino horn to treat fever, gout and other ailments for more than 2000 years.

The result is that some of these species have been pushed to the brink of extinction.

The herbal treatments on offer may be harmless or have some health benefits, even if only due to the placebo effect. But they won’t help us stave off Covid-19, and they won’t serve as a stopgap until the vaccine arrives.

Herbal treatments on offer here may be harmless or have some health benefits . . . but they won’t help us stave off Covid-19.