Tropical Medicine & Surgery is an open access publication that features scientific works of considerable significance and impact in all aspects of Tropical Medicine and Surgery: Emerging Infectious Diseases, Neglected Tropical Diseases, Non communicable Diseases, Tropical Biomedicine, Tropical Diseases, Tropical Fish Diseases, Tropical Fish Medicine, Tropical Health Nutrition, Tropical Medicine, Tropical Medicine and Health and Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

Having access to reliable information sources is essential for informing public health measures during epidemics and pandemics.The execution of suitable public health interventions has been impeded by an abundance of information during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.The new disease was announced to the globe at the beginning of 2020, and by mid-March 2020, scholarly journals had published more than 2000 publications on COVID-19.As a result, it is projected that more systematic reviews (SRs) on COVID-19 will be published than those of any other illnesses.

Researchers and scientific organisations have started to show interest in and consideration for the use of herbal medicine in the management of COVID-19 as it spreads throughout nations.Numerous studies have shown that using herbal medicine can reduce COVID-19 symptoms, enhance test results, and boost the clinical cure rate.However, due to their complex chemical makeups and potential herb/drug interactions, herbal medicines may have some unintended side effects, necessitating a more complete analysis.In-depth summaries of the research supporting the efficacy and safety of herbal remedies can be found in SRs.The quality, emphasis, and intervention used in these SRs, however, have made it difficult to evaluate data about the effects of herbal medicines accurately.

In order to give an unbiased and thorough assessment of the effectiveness and safety of herbal medicines in treating COVID-19, this overview of SRs sought to analyse and summarise herbal medicine-related SRs that were accessible.

The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) 2020 statement was used to conduct this overview of SRs because the Preferred Reporting Items for Overviews of Reviews (PRIOR) have not yet been fully developed. This overview of SRs was conducted in accordance with the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Intervention.The Research Registry received this list of SRs for registration.

Eight SRs also included nonrandomized evidence in addition to RCTs, whereas thirteen SRs solely included RCTs as primary studies.There was a large amount of overlap between the primary studies in each SR, which ranged from two to twenty-five.Over the course of the 21 SRs, 258 primary studies, comprising 182 RCTs, 45 case-control studies, 17 cohorts, 8 pre-post studies, and 6 case series, were found.84 distinct primary studies, including 49 RCTs, 22 case-control studies, four cohorts, seven pre-post studies, and two case series, were found after overlapping studies were eliminated.

Herbal formulations, proprietary drugs, and injections were the herbal medicine interventions.Among them, Qingfei Touxie Fuzheng prescription (n = 10) and Maxing Xuanfei Jiedu decoction (n = 6) and Qingfei Paidu decoction (n = 6) were the herbal formulae that were used the most frequently.Lianhua Qingwen capsules (n = 20) and Jinhua Qinggan granules (n = 15), Shufeng Jiedu capsules (n = 10), Toujie Qingwen granules (n = 10), and Lianhua Qingke granules (n = 10) were the most often utilised herbal trademarked medications.Demonstrates the different herbal medicine interventions that the included SRs have assessed.