Coronavirus Treatment: Japanese Flu Drug Found Effective

With the surge in the number of COVID-19 cases daily, experts throughout the world have been working on finding a way to treat or cure the deadly virus. Patients treated with a particular Japanese drug have been found to turn negative for coronavirus after about four days.

Per Japan’s state broadcaster NHK report, the Chinese medical authorities have claimed a Japanese drug that treats new strains of influenza to be effective for COVID-19 patients.

Favipiravir had produced positive outcomes during clinical trials conducted in Shenzen as well as the COVID-19’s epicenter Wuhan, according to Zhang Xinmin, director of China’s National Center for Biotechnology Development.

“It has a high degree of safety and is clearly effective in treatment,” CNBC mentioned Zhang.

COVID-19 patients treated with the drug developed by a subsidiary of Fujifilm in Shenzen was reported to turn patients negative for Coronavirus within a median of four days, rather than 11 days for those who were not given the drug favipiravir.

Per the data compiled by John Hopkins University, coronavirus has affected over 200,000 individuals globally with over 8,000 deaths.

“The trial also found that X-ray photos confirmed improvements in lung conditions in about 91 percent of the patients who were given the medicine. The number stood at 62 percent for those without the drug. The director said the drug is highly safe and its effect is obvious, and formally recommend the use of the medicine as a way to tackle the virus,” mentioned the NHK report.

The report also highlighted the fact that one particular Chinese firm, which has licensed the drug from its Japanese developers, got the government’s approval a month ago in order to mass-produce the medication and help save thousands of people infected with the deadly virus.

Tech Crunch mentioned that the drug isn’t really effective in treating those with severe symptoms, especially in cases where the virus has already multiplied to a great extent. However, a treatment that can be effective in reducing the duration of the symptoms and lessen the impacts in moderate symptomatic patients might be a huge benefit, especially when it has been announced a pandemic.

Other drug treatments are in the process of development but no antiviral hasn’t been approved or created yet.