President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Sunday lauded advances Taiwan has made in developing an East-meets-West approach to treating COVID-19, and said it has increased Taiwan's visibility on the global stage.

"Chinese medicine practitioners in Taiwan have been actively developing a treatment method for COVID-19, using both Chinese and Western medicine approaches," Tsai said at an annual Chinese medicine forum.

"The results have received international attention," she said, with the Chinese medicine part of the approach, a formula called "Taiwan Chingguan No. 1," finding demand in Western countries.

Two pharmaceutical companies are exporting Taiwan Chingguan No. 1 to more than 10 countries with the authorization from the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW), mostly as a food supplement.

It is not yet available in Taiwan, however, because it has yet to obtain a drug permit, which normally takes 5-10 years to obtain.

The drug's developers have faced roadblocks in getting a permit at home because Taiwan has not had enough COVID-19 patients on which to test its effectiveness.

It also cannot be sold in Taiwan as a supplement because some of its ingredients are not included on Taiwan's Food and Drug Administration lists of permissible foods.

But in the few cases in which it has been tested, it has proven effective.

According to the MOHW, Taiwan's Tri-Service General Hospital, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, and several other medical institutions have been experimenting with the co-treatment method since March 2020, based on guidelines drafted by the National Research Institute of Chinese Medicine (NRICM).

Under the approach, Chinese medicine practitioners prescribed treatments for COVID-19 patients in Taiwan using clinical data provided by Western-medicine physicians, aided in some cases by video consultations.

In-person consultations were generally not possible because doctors' protective suits made it impossible to take patients' pulse or check their biological signs.

On average, patients were able to achieve three consecutive negative test results within nine days after being given the drugs and experienced no side effects or negative interaction between the different drugs, the MOHW said on its website.

On June 1, 2020, the NRICM shared the guidelines online as a reference for Chinese medicine practitioners around the world.

Taiwan Chingguan No. 1, developed by a team headed by the NRICM, consists of 10 antiviral and immunomodulatory herbs and is one of the important elements in the success of the co-treatment, according to the MOHW.

Tsai also pledged to work with Chinese medicine practitioners to further develop the sector, citing the Chinese Medicine and Pharmacy Development Act passed on December 2019, and the 2020-2024 Chinese medicine development plan that has a budget of NT$670 million (US$23.56 million).

In addition, the government has added several diseases for which Chinese medicine treatments are now covered by Taiwan's national health insurance system on a trial basis, and has helped Taiwan's Chinese medicine products meet international standards, making them more competitive globally, Tsai said.