An economic downturn is a bad time to get sick, especially in poor countries. As conventional medicines become scarce and pricey, desperate patients turn to cheaper herbal remedies to treat even serious illnesses like diabetes, cancer and, these days, covid-19. Many doctors, of the scrub-wearing variety, doubt those treatments’ effectiveness. But the business of peddling them is in rude health.
In 2021 sales of Yiling Pharmaceutical, a big maker of traditional Chinese medicines including lianhua qingwen, used against covid, among various other ailments, exceeded 10bn yuan ($1.6bn), nearly double the figure in pre-pandemic 2019. Amid recent Chinese covid outbreaks in March and April Yiling’s market capitalisation surpassed $11bn.
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