Page 4 - NIH Bulletin Vol. 16 December 2020

Bulletin National Institutes of Health, Malaysia Vol 16 • 2020

RAPID REVIEWS AND

SHORT REPORTS ON

HERBAL, TRADITIONAL

REMEDIES, FINISHED HERBAL

PRODUCTS, SUPPLEMENTS,

AND MEDICAL DEVICES IN

COVID-19 MANAGEMENT

Since the initiation of the Movement Control Order in March 2020 in
Malaysia due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Herbal Medicine Research
Centre (HMRC), under Institute for Medical Research (IMR), National
Institutes of Health (NIH), received numerous queries originating from
the public, on the potential use of various herbs, traditional remedies,
finished herbal products, supplements, and medical devices in
COVID-19 management.
In response to a total of 21 queries over a period of a three and half
months, the HMRC has produced several technical short reports
and reviews. Each prepared document contains evidence-based
information on individual intervention in question’s efficacy (antiviral,
anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory effects), safety (toxicity studies,
reported human side or adverse effects), and the research gaps as well
as its potential role based on current understanding of the infection
pathogenesis. In conjunction to increase the public awareness towards
the use and safety of herbal remedy and medical device, a total of
two infographics specifically on usage of neem and health tags were
also produced for the Health Education and Communications Centre,
Ministry of Health.

From these documents, few suitable reports have been published
on the Global Information Hub on Integrated Medicine (GlobinMed)
website to raise awareness as well as for information sharing while
others were only circulated internally for its intended recipients to
preserve confidentiality.

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