Challenges and strategies for implementing Chinese medicine during COVID-19 in Malaysia

Teo, Chiah Shean; Tan, Pik Munn; Shu, Connie Siew Ing; Choo, Zi Xian; Te, Kian Keong

doi:10.1016/j.imr.2021.100783

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…This shows that topics about COVID-19 medication are embedded in a larger online cultural context [66]. Arguably, in other societal context where traditional medicines are respected and used (eg, Korea, Malaysia, Jordan, India) [67][68][69][70], there may appear separate topics about treatment plans or promotions of traditional medicines. With the results presented in the next section, we cannot definitively conclude whether social media topics about them are useful data or noise for infoveillance studies, but we propose that this could be reinspected in future studies.…”

Section: Topic Characteristics During China's Exit From the Zero-covi...mentioning

confidence: 96%

Topic and Trend Analysis of Weibo Discussions About COVID-19 Medications Before and After China’s Exit from the Zero-COVID Policy: Retrospective Infoveillance Study

Lan,

Ren,

et al. 2023

J Med Internet Res

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Background After 3 years of its zero-COVID policy, China lifted its stringent pandemic control measures with the announcement of the 10 new measures on December 7, 2022. Existing estimates suggest 90%-97% of the total population was infected during December. This change created a massive demand for COVID-19 medications and treatments, either modern medicines or traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Objective This study aimed to explore (1) how China’s exit from the zero-COVID policy impacted media and the public’s attention to COVID-19 medications; (2) how social COVID-19 medication discussions were related to existing model estimates of daily cases during that period; (3) what the diversified themes and topics were and how they changed and developed from November 1 to December 31, 2022; and (4) which topics about COVID-19 medications were focused on by mainstream and self-media accounts during the exit. The answers to these questions could help us better understand the consequences of exit strategies and explore the utilities of Sina Weibo data for future infoveillance studies. Methods Using a scrapper for data retrieval and the structural topic modeling (STM) algorithm for analysis, this study built 3 topic models (all data, before a policy change, and after a policy change) of relevant discussions on the Chinese social media platform Weibo. We compared topic distributions against existing estimates of daily cases and between models before and after the change. We also compared proportions of weibos published by mainstream versus self-media accounts over time on different topics. Results We found that Weibo discussions shifted sharply from concerns of social risks (case tracking, governmental regulations, etc) to those of personal risks (symptoms, purchases, etc) surrounding COVID-19 infection after the exit from the zero-COVID policy. Weibo topics of “symptom sharing” and “purchase and shortage” of modern medicines correlated more strongly with existing susceptible-exposed-infected-recovered (SEIR) model estimates compared to “TCM formulae” and other topics. During the exit, mainstream accounts showed efforts to specifically engage in topics related to worldwide pandemic control policy comparison and regulations about import and reimbursement of medications. Conclusions The exit from the zero-COVID policy in China was accompanied by a sudden increase in social media discussions about COVID-19 medications, the demand for which substantially increased after the exit. A large proportion of Weibo discussions were emotional and expressed increased risk concerns over medication shortage, unavailability, and delay in delivery. Topic keywords showed that self-medication was sometimes practiced alone or with unprofessional help from others, while mainstream accounts also tried to provide certain medication instructions. Of the 16 topics identified in all 3 STM models, only “symptom sharing” and “purchase and shortage” showed a considerable correlation with SEIR model estimates of daily cases. Future studies could consider topic exploration before conducting predictive infoveillance analysis, even with narrowly defined search criteria with Weibo data.

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Section: Topic Characteristics During China's Exit From the Zero-covi...mentioning

confidence: 96%

Topic and Trend Analysis of Weibo Discussions About COVID-19 Medications Before and After China’s Exit from the Zero-COVID Policy: Retrospective Infoveillance Study

Lan,

Ren,

et al. 2023

J Med Internet Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is one of the essential treatments applied to 92.4% of confirmed patients in China. It has effectively prevented the transition into severe and critical states from mild and moderate states and improved critical patients' conditions in multiple aspects [9][10][11][12][13] . Notably, Lianhua Qingwen (LHQW) is a typical TCM formulation recognized and validated to show therapeutic effects through clinical research and observation [14] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An umbrella review of Lianhuaqingwen combined with Western medicine for the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019

Yang

Zhang

Zhao

et al. 2022

Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine

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Objective: Lianhua Qingwen combined with Western medicine (LHQW+WM) has been proposed as a viable treatment for coronavirus disease 2019 . Interestingly, umbrella reviews of systematic reviews (SRs), which provide the most comprehensive evidence, are the best evidence in evidence-based medicine. Therefore, an umbrella review of SRs that summarizes and evaluates the efficacy of LHQW+WM for COVID-19 is urgently required.Methods: Overall, 6 databases were used to conduct a comprehensive literature search from inception to January 22, 2022. The corrected covered area (CCA) was used to analyze the overlapping between SRs. Meta-analysis was conducted when that of the included SRs was inappropriate. A MeaSurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR-2) was also employed to assess the quality of the included SRs.Results: In total, 12 SRs were identified, which included 12 unique primary studies. The included SRs ranged in quality from moderate to critically low and had an extremely high CCA (36.4%). Compared to conventional treatment, LHQW+WM showed efficacy concerning fatigue recovery [risk ratio (RR) = 1.69, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.04-2.73, n = 2, I 2 = 0%], cough recovery (RR = 1.65, 95% CI: 1.09-2.51, n = 3, I 2 = 39.1%), and overall effective rates (RR = 1.17, 95% CI: 1.07-1.28, n = 3, I 2 = 17.5%).Conclusion: LHQW+WM may improve the clinical symptoms of patients with COVID-19; however, the results should be interpreted cautiously because of the rigorous processes in the included SRs.

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“…As COVID-19 continues to spread throughout countries, the use of herbal medicine in the management of COVID-19 began to gain interest and consideration from researchers and scientific groups ( Dai et al, 2021 ; Lee et al, 2020 ; Shankar et al, 2020 ; Teo et al, 2021 ). Herbal medicine has been widely used in improving symptoms of COVID, improving laboratory indicators, and increasing the clinical cure rate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Herbal medicine for COVID-19: An overview of systematic reviews and meta-analysis

et al. 2022

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Challenges and strategies for implementing Chinese medicine during COVID-19 in Malaysia

Cited by 4 publications

References 15 publications

Topic and Trend Analysis of Weibo Discussions About COVID-19 Medications Before and After China’s Exit from the Zero-COVID Policy: Retrospective Infoveillance Study

Topic and Trend Analysis of Weibo Discussions About COVID-19 Medications Before and After China’s Exit from the Zero-COVID Policy: Retrospective Infoveillance Study

An umbrella review of Lianhuaqingwen combined with Western medicine for the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019

Herbal medicine for COVID-19: An overview of systematic reviews and meta-analysis

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