Patients given the medicine in Shenzhen turned negative in a median of four days
Photograph: John Minchillo/AP
Medical authorities in China have said a drug used in Japan to treat new strains of influenza appeared to be effective in coronavirus patients, Japanese media said on Wednesday.
Zhang Xinmin, an official at China’s science and technology ministry,
said favipiravir, developed by a subsidiary of Fujifilm, had produced
encouraging outcomes in clinical trials in Wuhan and Shenzhen involving
340 patients.
“It has a high degree of safety and is clearly effective in treatment,” Zhang told reporters on Tuesday.
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,
public broadcaster NHK said.
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.
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Fujifilm Toyama Chemical, which developed the drug – also known as Avigan – in 2014, has declined to comment on the claims.
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in the firm surged on Wednesday following Zhang’s comments, closing the
morning up 14.7% at 5,207 yen, having briefly hit their daily limit
high of 5,238 yen. Doctors in Japan
are using the same drug in clinical studies on coronavirus patients
with mild to moderate symptoms, hoping it will prevent the virus from
multiplying in patients. 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,” the source told the Mainichi Shimbun.
The same limitations had been identified in studies involving
coronavirus patients using a combination of the HIV antiretrovirals
lopinavir and ritonavir, the source added.
In 2016, the Japanese government supplied favipiravir as an emergency aid to counter the Ebola virus outbreak in Guinea.
Favipiravir would need government approval for full-scale use on
Covid-19 patients, since it was originally intended to treat flu.
A health official told the Mainichi the drug could be approved as
early as May. “But if the results of clinical research are delayed,
approval could also be delayed.”
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