Thread by @DrEricDing

Good 💊 news- “favipiravir, developed by a subsidiary of Fujifilm, had produced encouraging outcomes in clinical trials in Wuhan and Shenzhen in 340 patients with “high degree of safety and is clearly effective in treatment”. How well? Thread 🧵 #COVID19
theguardian.com/world/2020/mar…

2) 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. #COVID19

3) 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.” #COVID19

4) 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. #COVID19

5) ⚠️ 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” #COVID19

6) Favipiravir would need government approval for full-scale use on Covid-19 patients, since it was originally intended to treat flu- the drug could be approved as early as May. “But if the results of clinical research are delayed, approval could also be delayed.” #COVID19

7) Not the study above, but older report describes Favipiravir (T-705; 6-fluoro-3-hydroxy-2-pyrazinecarboxamide) as “a broad spectrum, anti-viral agent that selectively and potently inhibits the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) of RNA viruses. #COVID19 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28769016/