Kampo and COVID-19, updates from Japan and Brazil

Our Kampo colleague Kazusei Akiyama, MD in São Paulo City urges us in the West to  earnestly share  our experiences of treating the current pandemic (Kazusei Akiyama is interviewed in our section “Ask a Kampo Doctor”).  Here is his message from 1 August 2020:

Hello from Brazil, the country of COVID-19!

Here in Brazil, we have a daily average of more than 1000 deaths by COVID-19 for 7 consecutive weeks (91.607 deaths until today). At the São Paulo City, were I live, the situation is stable, the R(t) is about 1, so no case increase but no decrease. As the situation is considered controlled,  field hospitals for COVID have been disassembled. 

As a new disease, there is no definitive medicine for prevention or treatment. Probably we all think that Kampo is useful but there is no scant news about Kampo X COVID in the public press. Dr. Kenji Watanabe told me recently that an organization where he is the Representative Director had made a “Guideline of prophylactic use of Kampo Medicine for COVID-19”. An English version is available. It can be a contribution of our society to deal with the actual pandemic…

Guideline

Yours,

Kazusei Akiyama, MD

São Paulo, Brazil