After eighty days of using his Traditional Chinese Medicine expertise to help Wuhan, the worst-hit city in the country, weather the worst of the COVID-19 outbreak, Zhang Boli returned to his home city of Tianjin yesterday. 

Zhang, 72, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and president of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, was one of the leading medical experts guiding treatment in Wuhan.

He helped design and set up the only TCM makeshift hospital in the city, which played a big role in preventing mild symptoms from turning severe.

"TCM, paired with Western medicine, is the most effective way to treat novel coronavirus patients,” said Zhang. “This is the triumph of the combination of traditional Chinese wisdom and modern technology."

During its 26-day operation, the hospital helped COVID-19 patients pull through the disease. Of the 564 patients admitted with light symptoms, none progressed to a critical condition.

Zhang, as general counselor, led a team of 400 Chinese medicine experts from five provinces and cities in making treatment plans and other supportive measures for patients. To better understand the virus, he would usually spend a long time in the quarantine area, examining the clinical symptoms of patients one by one, according to Xiong Kan, deputy president of the TCM makeshift hospital.

"Under academician Zhang's in-depth supervision, the depth, breadth and intensity of Chinese medicine intervention used during the outbreak were unprecedented," Xiong added.