(Beijing, May 1)A news report by Hu Dingkun and Yu Haoyuan from Science and Technology Daily:

On April 13, a special message was sent to Liu Qing, president of the Jiangsu Industrial Technology Research Institute. It came from Karin Vith Ankerstjerne, general manager of the Innovation House China-Danmark, who is also a Liu’s business partner in Copenhagen.

At that moment, Liu was worried about Karin's health situation. Just a few days earlier, he had learned that Karin was diagnosed with COVID-19 in a severe illness condition, and was being isolated at home.“The illness is very tiring and takes long time...it was just like two steps forward and one step backward...When I started to feel a little bit better, I tried to get up, move, and work, but I just had to fall back to bed again...The disease would go forward, I believe,”Karin once described her feelings to Liu.

Luckily, Karin brought good news this time. She went to a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) doctor in Copenhagen for symptomatic treatment. She told Liu that after she got some herbs and took them following the doctor’s medical advice, the bad situation, especially the difficulty of breathing, had changed. A part of the advice from the TCM doctor was also to avoid spicy food, avoid eating cold food, and drink lots of boiling water to clear the body in between the herbal mixture every three hours.

Her mother, her husband, and her daughter, were also infected, but the onset time was late. After drinking Chinese herbal medicine, the deterioration of the disease has been contained, she said. Karin has spread the information on social media about how TCM helped her body to fight the coronavirus, and she do wish that more people will follow and give TCM a try, as she said: “COVID-19 is new disease without a known cure today, so we have to look for new ways fight the virus off.”

Why did Karin who lives in Danmark turn her eyes to China’s TCM? It all started with a press conference held by the State of Council Information Office P.R.C. on February 21. Xu Nanping, the Vice Minister of Ministry of Science and Technology, introduced on that day, TCM has been involved in the treatment of more than 85% of COVID-19 patients in China. Generally speaking, the current treatment of TCM in use has shown a certain curative effect. When TCM treatment and western medical treatment are combined, the effect is very obvious.

The press conference, reported by the South China Morning Post in English, gave Karin a new option as she was suffering from her illness. She told Liu that she was pretty lucky to be able to read the report and learn that Chinese medicine can be efficacious in treating COVID-19. Otherwise, she couldn't have thought of this treatment herself, and it could have been worse than it is now. It is all thanks to TCM and Vice Minister Xu's reminder, she said.

Liu reposted Karin’s appreciation to Xu Nanping. “I’m very grateful! I just called my mum and gave her your greetings. My mother became very touched and moved by the kind greetings. Thank you for your kindness, which means so much to me and my family,” Karin replied excitedly. Liu also conveyed Xu’s greetings to her.

In fact, as one of the several offshore incubators set up overseas by the Jiangsu Industrial Technology Research Institute, the Innovation House China-Danmark is Denmark's first China-themed incubator. Xu Nanping has once met Karin with Liu’s accompany during his visit to Danmark in May 2019. Xu’s words gave Karin the confidence to choose TCM to treat her illness.

Xu Nanping(L) visited the Innovation House China-Danmark and met Karin(M) and Liu Qing(R) in May 2019.

(Picture provided by Jiangsu Industrial Technology Research Institute)

Thanks to the fact that TCM has been actively "going out", more and more Chinese doctors have gone abroad to save lives by using TCM, which makes it possible for Karin to choose TCM for treatment when she has such intention.

Dr. Zhou Pengyan, who treated Karin, was born in a medical family specialized in TCM. He has been working on Chinese medical treatment and teaching Chinese medicine from 1990. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, there have been suddenly a lot more people seeking for TCM treatment. His strategy is “one person one prescription, syndrome differentiation” and there have been fifty to sixty patients of novel coronavirus cured by him. What he points out is “as long as the treatment is in time, the effect would all be good!”

"Twenty years ago, TCM was not well understood in Europe and the United States. I often got calls from doctors asking to watch how I treat patients," Looking back on his decades of overseas treatment experiences, Zhou Pengyan says that this situation has disappeared in recent years and people have gradually accepted TCM.

When it comes to the difficulties of promoting TCM overseas, Zhou said that access to TCM herbs from countries and regions outside the European Union is limited，which greatly limits the scope of treatment. "I think it's still a very difficult problem to solve," he said.

Fortunately, this did not seriously affect the diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19. Karin recently told the Science and Technology Daily reporter that her family had very good treatment effect, and they have already basically recovered. She is continuing taking medical treatments, her body is gradually recovering and her symptoms are gradually diminishing.

Karin is confident about using TCM to treat COVID-19. "I will continue taking Chinese medicine to make sure my body will soon recover," she continued to write to Liu on WeChat,“It is a big struggle for the whole world. Please send my regards and pass on how amazed I am for the Chinese Government’s ability to fight and contain the virus. I have followed the lock-down of China very closely, and I believe that especially three factors have been essential for containing of the virus: Intensive testing and control of fever upon entering a building; Minimal access to outside during the lock-down and no access for elderly and chronically ill; and Scanning of QR codes at public places to track down if you have been in danger of infection. This is definitely something that we could learn from in the West.”