Chinese scientists have been working on methods to quell cytokine storm - a major cause of death of critically ill patients of the novel coronavirus, Zhou Qi, an academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences, said on Saturday.

Some recent media reports said a number of patients with novel coronavirus have suffered from a cytokine storm, an overreaction of immune cells and their activating compounds known as cytokines caused by external virus, infection or drugs that can damage the body itself while trying to eliminate the virus at the same time.

The occurrence of a cytokine storm signifies that a patient with novel coronavirus pneumonia has transitioned from having mild symptoms to severe or critical symptoms. It is also a major cause of death of critically ill patients, Zhou said at a news conference.

He said the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have carried out many projects that focus on discovering ways to reduce a cytokine storm and exploring new treatments by modifying the immune response and suppressing inflammation in a bid to treat critical patients.

To prevent the occurrence of a cytokine storm, scientists have screened many old drugs, including some drugs that have been proven effective in the treatment of rheumatism. After several preliminary verifications, some drugs have been put into clinical trials on 14 critical cases, with the oldest patients being 82 years old, and the results have appeared encouraging, Zhou said.

He said the comparative experiment is also underway with 94 cases in the treatment group and 94 in the control group – patients who do not receive the treatment in order to test the effectiveness of the drug.

"If the initial results prove effective, we will promote these effective treatments to critical patients as soon as possible," he said.

"The work on reducing the cytokine storm is still ongoing. I believe more candidate drugs will be put into treatment," he added.