Potential danger to public health: Italy on misuse of Parvulan as COVID treatment
Milan: Italy's medicines agency AIFA warned on Friday against the misuse of an unlicensed antiviral drug as a COVID-19 therapy, calling it a potential danger to people's health.
Regulators said the Ministry of Health had alerted them of a high number of requests to import Parvulan, an antiviral drug used as treatment for Herpes Zoster, which is not authorised in Italy but legally registered and marketed in Brazil.
"The possible use of the drug as a substitute for authorised vaccines therefore represents a potential danger to human health", AIFA said.
The danger would not only be due to the lack of safety in its use but also to the unjustified sense of protection patients would have from it, given the lack of documented efficacy, the regulator added in its statement.
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