Favipiravir found very effective against COVID-19 in clinical trials

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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.

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