Update from the Clificol Project: Omicron in Hong-Kong and worldwide overview of the pandemic

Abstract

Background: The Clificol® COVID-19 Support Project is an innovative international data collection project aimed at documenting the presenting symptoms, use of homeopathy through the pandemic and tackling some of the core questions in homeopathy. Aims: The Covid-19 pandemic raised many questions and mobilised many resources. In order to make good use of resources, sound knowledge of the presenting complaints and demographics are required. In particular, we aimed to characterise the recent Omicron wave in Hong-Kong and to get an overall picture of the global pandemic as experienced by the homeopathic community. Methodology: This online multi-national data-collection project is supported by the ECH, ECCH, ICH, HRI, LMHI, and other professional associations. The collected data includes demographic information, severity, conventional diagnosis and treatment, presenting symptoms as well as the remedies prescribed. The outcome of treatment was tracked using the ORIDL scale. More recently a 23-items prospective questionnaire was added to the input in order to gather targeted data about the presenting complaints. Results and discussion: The recent wave of the Omicron variant in Hong-Kong, was analysed (N=372 cases) in terms of the symptomatology of this variant. The data from the 23-items questionnaire is compared to the longer questionnaire (150 items) used by the Hong-Kong team (21 practitioners). The most frequently reported common Clinical symptoms were extreme tiredness (60%), sore throat (46%), headache during fever (45%), dryness of mouth (37%), poor appetite (37%), runny nose (34%) and unusual muscle pains (31%). Also, the cases collected from around the world over the course of the pandemic (N=1300) were analysed, providing an overall picture of the pandemic and its specificities per country and over time. Conclusions: Clificol has shown and continues to show the value of data collection for the homeopathy community, providing important information for the management of future pandemics and opening new avenues for research in homeopathy.