Covid-19: Favipiravir cures patients within days of clinical trials

Clinical trials of favipiravir, a coronavirus drug have shown positive results as a large number of patients are recovering twice as fast using the drug compared to standard treatment.

Russian pharmaceutical investment firm, ChemRar in collaboration with the Russian Direct Investment Fund have been putting the drug to clinical trials by administering it on infected patients who have shown positive responses.

According to Russian Direct Investment Fund, the drug has several advantages and the primary one being the fact that it is available in tablet form which makes it easy to use.

The drug also causes significant reduction in the amount of time patients take recovering from the virus.

In a statement, the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Kirill Dmitriev, said, “The first positive results of the trial will facilitate an accelerated permission from the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation to start using the drug, which will enable treatment of patients with Favipiravir across Russia’s regions.”

In several phases of clinical trials, data collected showed significant results as 60 percent of 40 patients in test group who took favipriavir tested negative after five days of treatment.

This is twice as fast as standard therapy. Also in China where it was previously tested, similar results were recorded with several patients experiencing short-time recovery from the virus.
While the clinical trials are still ongoing, Dmitriev disclosed that proper monitoring over the safety of using the drug is a priority.

“Regulators and experts will be able to monitor the safety of using favipiravir in Russia online as a special system for post-registration monitoring is being developed for them,” he stated.

It should be noted that in an attempt to win the fight against the pandemic which has claimed over 300,000 lives, several drugs are undergoing clinical trials around the globe and normal rigorous limits on testing has been lifted in order to fast track production and availability of as many effective drugs as possible to cure the virus and save lives.

For instance, triple antiviral medicine has recently been put in clinical trials in Hong Kong and the result showed how it has helped relieve symptoms of patients.

Similarly in America, remdesivir and famotidine have shown positive result as the drugs prove effective to help relieve patients with the symptoms.