Generally speaking, traditional Chinese medicine has great advantages when used for fighting AIDS. First of all, its clinical efficacy rises continually. This is partly due to the fact that the emphasis of the therapeutic work shifts with the progress of the disease, that is, different means were used at different stages of development of the HIV infection.
The first stage of AIDS is not marked by any symptoms. Scholars of traditional Chinese medicine are of the opinion that the earlier the treatment of the disease starts, the better the result of the therapeutic work will be. What is of paramount importance at the beginning is the protection of the patient's immunological function, to keep at a minimum the damage to the patient's immunity that HIV causes, and to prolong the period when the disease is in quietude. This is in fact the greatest advantage to be gained by using traditional Chinese medicine. The best method for patients who are in the intermediate stage should be a combination of Western and traditional Chinese medicine so as to compensate for what is short in one with what is long in the other. Western drugs suppress HIV, whereas traditional Chinese medicines reduce toxicity and enhance efficacy. They increase the patients' tolerance of the anti-AIDS drugs and make it easier for them to comply with the request of having the detestable drugs administered to them by the nurses. Moreover, it is said that traditional Chinese medicines for anti-AIDS purposes are particularly effective for those patients who got infected purely by accident.
When a patient has arrived at the late stage of AIDS, scholars of traditional Chinese medicine would do their utmost to alleviate the symptoms and prolong his/her life as far as it is possible. Many Tanzanian AIDS patients who were very poor went on living for more than ten years by relying for therapy solely on traditional Chinese medicines.

Advantages of traditional Chinese medicines in fighting AIDS:
1.There are abundant sources of the medicines. They need only seeking for.
2.The medicines are low in price. They are affordable to the great majority of patients.
3.The effectiveness of the medicines are not blunted by long use, and they have few toxic side effects.
4.The medicines have definite and precise therapeutic effects in clinical work, and these effects are shown in many respects.
5.The medicines are effectual in protecting and improving a patient's immunity, in prolonging his/her life, and in enabling the patient to live for a long time in almost perfect compatibility with the virus.
6.The dialectical theory of traditional Chinese medicine makes it possible for the medical scholars to cope successfully with the complicated peculiarities of clinical work in the case of AIDS treatment.
7.The traditional Chinese medicines can be applied as soon as AIDS is ascertained by testing, unlike Western medicines, which generally should be employed only when the appropriate therapeutic conditions are present, because, if they are employed too early, their efficacy may have become blunted and they will no longer be effective on the patient. That is to say when the proper time comes for them to show their power, they will already have pitiably been "worn out". Therefore, the traditional Chinese medicines are more promising in the eyes of the AIDS patients.
How is the efficacy of traditional Chinese medical science in fighting AIDS to be properly evaluated? At present, there is no uniform standard for evaluating the result of treatment of AIDS in clinical work of traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine. As a rule, Western medicine takes the change in the patient's virus load as an indicator of efficacy of treatment, ignoring to a large extent the improvement of the patient's immunological function and his/her overall physical condition, and taking no account of the elevation of his/her quality of existence. If this method should be mechanically copied for evaluating the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine, it would obviously fail to conform to the clinical realities. There are great differences in concepts and methods between traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine in doing clinical work. In the treatment of AIDS, Western medicine lays special emphasis on the virus and pays relatively less attention to immunity and the patient's overall physical condition. The favorable result of treatment is reflected, in the Western view, as the destruction of the virus and the lowering of the virus load. In contrast, traditional Chinese medicine stresses immunity and the improvement of the functions of the patient's entire body. The patient's resistance to disease is to be fostered, while the pathogenic influences are to be dispelled. The former (the patient's resistance to disease) is deemed positive, healthy and righteous; the latter (the pathogenic force) is regarded as negative, vicious and evil. The righteous may conquer the evil, or the two may stay in a draw. In fighting AIDS in Tanzania, the scholars of traditional Chinese medicine strove to triumph on the righteous side and make the patients recover completely, or at least, if there had to be a draw, to prevent their condition from deteriorating and to enable them to go on living for a long time in compatibility with the virus. They discovered that the Chinese medicinal herbs are very effective in heightening the patients' immunity, lessening the clinical symptoms and improving the quality of the patients' existence. Many patients were able to live on with the virus in their bodies for a long time, though there were undulations and perhaps no obvious sign of a lowering of the virus load. Therefore, the current Western method of evaluating the results of treatment of AIDS, which takes the virus load as the main criterion, cannot truthfully reflect the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of AIDS. That object can be attained only by making a multi-layer, many-sided appraisal of the work of traditional Chinese medicine in treating AIDS patients. The indicators to be chosen should include: clinical symptoms, pathological bodily signs, the quality of existence, the up-to-up length of time of survival, the rate of deaths, the dates of occurrence of the disease, the patients physical and psychological conditions, immunological functions, virus loads, etc. Greater achievements hopefully will thus be made by scholars of traditional Chinese medicine in developing anti-AIDS drugs of high efficacy and low toxicity to be added to the realm of China's intellectual property rights.