Swine flu: Herbal cure found in China

Today I read an interesting article in the Hindu, the national paper of India, about the fact that in China there has been research going on to find a TCM( Traditional Chinese Medicine) cure for A(H1N1) flu, also called swine flu or Mexican flu.
Researchers in China made a herb formula which might do a good job in preventing and curing the new flu. They say Tamiflu which is used as a drug in cases of swine flu,and recommended by the World Health Organisation, will not be enough. And besides that:”… it also weakens the body and has adverse affects on body tolerance,” said Mr. Tu, the dean of the Chinese research team. The new herbal formula is also very cost-effective. The first results are very promising and more trials are still going on.
While at the same time the Chinese pharmaceutical industry is busy developing a vaccine to the Mexican flu, the Chinese government highly supports the development of this herbal formula. In a few large hospitals are already people treated with this formula instead of Tamiflu and the results are good. The governments invested 10 million Yuan in a comparative study on this herbal formula and Tamiflu and wants more hospitals to use this formula.
Treating patients with herbal formulas, which is part of TCM, is very common in many Chinese hospitals. And even more so in recent years, because of the cost-effectiveness of these formulas.
The herbal formula consists of four herbs: Jin yin hua (lonicera japonica), Da qing ye (Isatis indigodica), Bo he (Mentha haplocalyx) and Sheng gan cao (Glycyrrhiza glabra). The difference in action between this formula and Tamiflu is,also according to Mr Tu: “…while the TCM remedy works to build up the body’s resistance in a holistic way, the Tamiflu drug focuses on attacking the infection.”
In China there have been almost 1700 reported cases of A(H1N1) flu now. Mao Yue, president of the Ditan Hospital, said there is a “serious possibility” of a large-scale outbreak of the flu in the autumn and winter of this year, and that the government has already begun producing enough herbs to treat a possible 2 million patients.