Chinese herbal drug added to Cainta COVID response

The municipal government of Cainta in Rizal province purchased several capsules of a Chinese traditional medicine intended for its coronavirus-infected residents with mild to moderate symptoms of the respiratory illness. Mayor Johnielle Keith Nieto, in a telephone interview on Tuesday, said Lianhua Qingwen capsules would be distributed free to patients despite the warning of the Department of Health (DOH) that the herbal medicine “is not an anti-COVID-19 prescription drug.”

The Food and Drug Administration, on Aug. 7, approved the sale of the traditional medicine in the Philippines but only as a herbal product.

The Chinese drug claims to “help remove heat toxin invasion of the lungs, including symptoms, such as fever, aversion to cold, muscle soreness, stuffy and runny nose.”

In China, where the virus is reported to have originated, the medicine is being used to treat mild cases of the disease.

Aside from the herbal capsules, Nieto said the local government purchased 500 pulse oximeters, used by clipping over a person’s finger to measure one’s oxygen level in the blood. The device provides early detection of low oxygen saturation or if a person had to be put on ventilator at once.

Nieto said the local government was inclined “to do whatever there is to end this.” Cainta is set to open its own COVID-19 molecular laboratory, which could be the first in Rizal, a virus hotbed with 3,385 cases. Tapping local doctors

The DOH’s Aug. 24 case tally showed that Cainta recorded 608 cases, with 111 recoveries and 16 deaths.

But Nieto said it was on Tuesday that Cainta, for the “very first time,” saw more recoveries at 12, against seven new cases of infection.

The mayor attributed this to a new patient monitoring and treatment system in the town where 32 doctors, both government consultants and volunteers, were each assigned to a group of at least five COVID-19 patients undergoing home quarantine.

—Maricar Cinco