This is probably the most engaging and equally uninformative news surrounding the swine flu pandemic. Quoting Bernama:
BEIJING, July 23 (Bernama) – Chinese herbs have proved effective in the cure of Influenza A(H1N1) in Ditan Hospital, Beijing where 88 out of 117 patients treated for the disease only on the herbs fully recovered and were discharged.
Holy pigs! This is good news, right? That was my first impression too. Seriously, 88 out of 117 is over 75% success rate. Amazing is an understatement!
As I continued reading, I was happy to find out that this treatment is not only effective, it’s also very cheap:
“Treatment cost per patient using Tamiflu is about RMB56 a day whereas using traditional herbs it cost only around RMB12.”
Google tells me that RMB56 is about USD$8.20; whilst RMB12 is just above USD$1.75 (RM29 and RM6.20 respectively).
Then comes the clincher:
“We have even tested using the method on high risk patients since July 1, and the results proved favourable.” said Wang.
However, Wang did not reveal the herbs used to cure the patients.
Depressing isn’t it? Especially considering that 90% of all medical news for the past two months has been about H1N1.
And here I was, thinking that this would potentially be Nobel prize winning stuff. But until I see real evidence; I count this as vaporware.