A pharmacist weighs Chinese herbal medicines for patients infected with the novel coronavirus at Anhui Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Hefei, east China's Anhui Province, Feb. 18, 2020. (Xinhua/Bai Bin)

China's efforts to mobilize traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioners to find a cure for COVID-19 have yielded optimistic results as TCM has been applied in the majority of covonavirus patients in Wuhan and contributed to their stability, despite doubt by some skeptics.

TCM doctors and experts said a positive combination of TCM with Western medicine has proven the ability to shorten the treatment process. Amid the COVID-19 epidemic, experts are calling for deepened understanding of TCM.

Provincial regions such as East China's Zhejiang and Shandong, South China's Guangdong and Northwest China's Gansu and Qinghai on Wednesday have announced further practice of TCM in COVID-19 treatment.

Clinical treatment and recovery using TCM was included in the latest version of the COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment scheme released by the National Health Commission.

"The current therapies of TCM have seen a good result as most patients have been relieved from pain, cough, expectoration, and shortness of breath, and had better appetites," Wen Minyong, the captain of medical team supporting Wuhan from the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, told the Global Times.

Wen said that Chinese medicine believes that illness is caused by the malfunction of one or multiple organs influenced by factors such as dampness or internal heat. Therefore, the concept of Chinese medicine is to restore organ functions through some therapies. A healthy and functional organ helps to disperse these external factors known as viruses in Western medicine and called evils in traditional Chinese medicine, Wen said.

"TCM and Western medicine are equally important in treating COVID-19. The combination could shorten the treatment process and quickly ease the symptoms," Feng Yi, a chief doctor on Pulmonary Medicine at the TCM Hospital of Hubei, told the Global Times.

Liu Jinmin, director at the Dongfang Hospital of the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, told the Global Times that TCM has thousands of years of rich experience in treating epidemics.

In Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province, the Jiangxia Fang Cang makeshift hospital has been taken over by the national TCM team. The team uses methods such as acupuncture, massage and tai chi to treat patients and make sure each patient could have TCM decoction specifically designed according to their symptoms.

"Doubts and protests come from incomprehension," Liu Qingquan, director of the Beijing Hospital of TCM and Jiangxia makeshift hospital.

The TCM has been employed in the treatment of more than 85.2 percent of the COVID-19 confirmed cases by Monday, said Jiang Jian, an official with the National Administration of TCM. Outside Hubei, 87 percent of patients are cured or improved thanks to the use of TCM.

As of Monday, more than 3,100 medical personnel from more than 630 TCM hospitals across the country have been sent to aid Hubei Province in the fight against the epidemic, said Jiang.

The recommended TCM treatment plans include multiple herbal prescriptions targeting fever, heavy coughing, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, shortness of breath, and tiredness, according to the Xinhua News Agency.