Pakistani and Chinese experts on Saturday announced successful completion of clinical trials of a traditional Chinese medicine for the treatment of chronic bronchitis, a respiratory tract disease, claiming that the herbal medicine, ‘Yinhuang Qingfei’, contains anti-microbial elements and it completely cured 212 patients suffering from the disease within three to seven days.
“Today we announce the completion of successful clinical trials of Yinhuang Qingfei at the Centre for Bioequivalence Studies and Clinical Research (CBSCR) at Dr Panjwani Centre for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research. The herbal composition was used on 212 patients from October 2018 to October this year and it cured all the patients suffering from chronic bronchitis,” claimed Prof Dr Iqbal Chaudhry, the director of the International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS) at the University of Karachi, as he addressed a news conference on Saturday along with Chinese diplomats and experts from the Hunan province of China.
Prof Chaudhry declared the completion of successful clinical trials at the ICCBS as a historic moment and said it also paved the way for clinical trials of locally developed traditional Unani medicine of Pakistan and earning valuable revenue for the country.
Prof Dr M Raza Shah, the in-charge of the clinical trial project, and Chinese officials, including Guo Chunshui, Jian Zhang and Feibao Chen, also addressed the news conference.
Prof Chaudhry said the Chinese herbal medicine would be an alternative to antibiotics for chronic bronchitis patients and added that clinical confirmatory trials were conducted by the CBSCR, which is a component of Dr Panjwani Centre.
Congratulating the Pakistani experts on achieving the milestone of successful clinical trials of the first traditional Chinese medicine in Pakistan, the ICCBS director said it was the first time in the history of Pakistan that a product would be introduced in the Pakistani market based on research and clinical trials carried out in the country.
He said Yinhuang Qingfei was a herbal product prepared by the Hunan Anbang Pharmaceutical for the treatment of an acute attack of chronic bronchitis. Chronic bronchitis is a common disease related to chronic inflammation, which is caused by a variety of pathogenic factors, such as air pollution, smoking, and pathogen infection, he said.
The expert added that although current treatments such as bronchodilators, antitussive drugs, steroids and leukotriene receptor antagonists can relieve some of the main symptoms of chronic bronchitis, the treatments based on these drugs still often causes a series of adverse reactions.
Because of its satisfactory clinical efficacy, as the main component of complementary and alternative drug therapy, herbal preparation of natural medicine has drawn more attention from all over the world, which has also played an important role in the prevention and treatment of chronic bronchitis, he said.
Prof Shah said the clinical trial was carried out by using randomised, double-blind, double-simulation positive control study to assess the efficacy and effectiveness of Yinhuang Qingfei capsules on Pakistani patients with acute exacerbation of chronic bronchitis.
He told the media that a total of 212 patients of ages between 18 and 65 with an acute attack of chronic bronchitis were selected, diagnosed and evaluated according to the criteria of western medicine.
The Chinese officials said the efficacy and safety of the medicine were evaluated by pharmacodynamics, toxicology, phase II and III clinical studies, adding that since it was approved to be listed in China in 2002, the Yinhuang Qingfei capsule had been widely used in clinical practice, and its curative effect was significant.