Rising demand

Yang, the head of the cooperative in Yihuang, said the first sign of rising demand for mugwort leaves came in February, when the county government began purchasing large amounts of the plant from the cooperative.

At the time, the novel coronavirus was still spreading fast in Hubei province, one of the hardest-hit regions in China.

Yu Na, deputy head of Yihuang, said the county, which has a population of about 240,000, has bought mugwort leaves worth nearly 300,000 yuan ($42,300) through a variety of channels since February and distributed them to households, medical institutions and workplaces.

"Local health workers and community officials have guided residents in properly and safely burning mugwort leaves at home," she said. "The county's main TCM hospital was among the first to promote moxibustion therapies during the outbreak."

Gradually, smaller hospitals, health clinics, neighborhoods and designated quarantine areas began employing a wide range of mugwort-related TCM practices, she said, adding that it is estimated that 130,000 large sticks of mugwort leaves and 35,000 moxibustion tubes have been distributed across the county in the past few months. So far, no cases of coronavirus infection have been registered in Yihuang.

In Wuhan, Hubei, the city with the highest number of confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland, some temporary treatment centers converted from public facilities adopted smoke-free moxibustion products and mugwort patches.

They were used in conjunction with Western medical treatments or TCM, to care for patients and help them recover, according to a report in Hubei Daily, a local newspaper, in February.