A total of 2,220 medical workers trained in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) have participated in treating novel coronavirus patients in Hubei province, a senior expert said Friday.

Many of the medical workers also have participated in the fight against the SARS outbreak in 2003, said Huang Luqi, president of China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences.

Three national-level TCM teams, organized by the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, also have been dispatched to Hubei, said Huang, head of the TCM team at Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital.

The TCM workers have treated 248 confirmed and suspected novel coronavirus patients, and 159 of them have shown improvement and 51 have been discharged from the hospital, Huang said at a daily news conference in Wuhan.

More than 75 percent of novel coronavirus patients in Hubei, and more than 90 percent of patients in other regions of the country, have received TCM treatment, he said.

"We hope that Hubei province and Wuhan city can increase the use of TCM in treating confirmed and suspected novel coronavirus patients," Huang said.

TCM can shorten the course of disease for patients with severe symptoms, reduce the possibility of mild infections becoming severe, help with patient recovery and disease prevention and offer psychological support to patients, he said.

Citing a clinical survey, Huang said 80 percent of patients with severe symptoms and 90 percent of patients with mild symptoms are willing to receive TCM treatments.

"The country has published a treatment plan combining TCM with Western medicine for the treatment of novel coronavirus patients, and we hope we can work with colleagues in Western medicine to improve the plan, reduce the death rate and prevent patients with severe symptoms turning into critical patients," he added.