Favipiravir found very effective against COVID-19 in clinical trials

China: As lots of trials are undertaken to uncover a definitive treatment for coronavirus, Zhang Xinmin, head of China National Center for Biotech Development had reported in a news conference regarding the clinical trial with a new drug that might be effective against COVID-19.

COVID-19 which was first reported in December 2019, in Wuhan, China, and the current number of cases across the globe being crossed 2,000,000, scientists all over the world are working to end this novel pandemic. With respect to this, a combination of HIV drugs Lopinavir-Ritonavir which was under trial did not prove to be as effective as expected.

Read also: No benefit of Lopinavir–Ritonavir combo in severe COVID-19, says NEJM

Recently, an official from China's sci-tech department in Beijing announced that a new drug Favipiravir has been tested "very effective" against the world-sweeping COVID-19 caused by a novel coronavirus. According to the multiple news articles the drug favipiravir (sold under the brand name Avigan), developed by Fujifilm Toyama Chemical, had produced encouraging outcomes in clinical trials in Wuhan and Shenzhen involving 340 patients. 

In a clinical trial in Shenzhen involving 80 participants, patients who took Favipiravir showed greater chest improvement and took less time to test negative for the clinical trials trace of the virus, compared with patients not given the drug, stated Zhang.Following were the key findings:

1)Patients who were given the medicine in Shenzhen turned negative for the virus after a median of four days after becoming positive, compared with a median of 11 days for those who were not treated with the drug.

2)In addition, X-rays confirmed improvements in lung condition in about 91% of the patients who were treated with favipiravir, compared to 62% or those without the drug.

3)Another trial in Wuhan found the medicine can also shorten fever duration from an averaged 4.2 days to 2.5 days.

But a Japanese health ministry source suggested the drug was not as effective in people with more severe symptoms. "We've given Avigan to 70 to 80 people, but it doesn't seem to work that well when the virus has already multiplied"stated the health officials. Hence as the effectiveness of HIV combo drugs is still under debt, so is the case of Favipiravir.

Read also: HIV drugs in coronavirus patients: ICMR scientists release protocol for restricted public health emergency use