On Feb 25, good news came from the fifth ward of the third infection department, Wuhan Leishenshan Hospital, which ward is set up by Longhua Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Wuhan Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine. It was that Chen, one of the first confirmed patients in the department, was discharged from the hospital. It was also the first case cured by Shanghai national medical team of TCM.

On February 20, the nucleic acid test was positive and the blood oxygen saturation decreased. According to the clinical features of the patients, the clinical syndrome differentiation showed that the main cause of the disease was toxic dampness and pestilence invasion. The disease belonged to “dampness-warm pathogen” with upper attack of pestilent toxin. The pathogenesis is the exterior and interior beset by dampness and failure of lung and stomach. The treatment should be resolving dampness, detoxifying and expelling superficial pathogenic factors using the prescription of modified Huopu Xialing decoction. With the medication, SATS returned to normal and the symptoms disappeared, with no obvious discomfort. With two negative lab tests and no abnormalities on CT image, the patient was approved to be discharges by headquarters.

The group of The Longhua Hospital, part of the fourth national TCM team was composed of 30 health workers, which was set up in a very short time. The group was led by Prof. Fang Bangjiang, director of the emergency department of Longhua Hospital, and Lu Wei, deputy director of the nursing department, was the deputy head. According to the National Diagnosis and Treatment Guideline of COVID-19 and Shanghai TCM Diagnosis and Treatment Guideline of COVID-19, the TCM expert group including Dr. Fang formulated the diagnosis and treatment guideline of COVID-19 for Wuhan and established a new COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment system of TCM based on the individual differences of patients, the holistic concept syndrome differentiation and TCM treatment according to the local features.

At present, the 46 patients in this ward are obviously improving with the treatment of TCM.