Japanese medicine cripples the ability of the virus .. Is it relieved of corona?

After the Avigan drug has proven to be effective against influenza epidemics and has been used to fight Ebola, the drug is currently undergoing clinical tests to investigate its potential for treating people with the emerging coronavirus.

Here are questions and answers about this medication.

What is an Afghan drug?

Avigan is the trade name of the medication for faviravir, developed by a company that has come to be known as "Fujifilm Toyama Chemical", and it was approved in 2014 in Japan.

However, it is only allowed to be used in Japan in cases of influenza epidemics that cannot be treated with circulating drugs. It is not available for sale, and it can only be produced and distributed at the request of the Japanese government. The faviravirus paralyzes the ability of a virus to multiply inside a cell.

But it raises concerns about its side effects, as animal studies have shown that it affects fetal development. Hence, it is not prescribed to pregnant women, and medical experts say they do not recommend using it to treat children and boys.

How is it used against the emerging corona virus?

Doctors began experiments with faviravir, and they began using it to treat people with the emerging coronavirus in the early stages of the disease, and they said its antiviral effect was working.

Initial results show that this drug may contribute to reducing the patient’s recovery period. The Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology reported "very good clinical results."

About five clinical tests are currently taking place in the world, in the United States, Italy and Japan, as Fujifilm announced that it is working to verify the efficacy of the drug on 100 patients until the end of next June.

The Japanese study requires treating patients between the ages of 20 and 74 who suffer from minor pneumonia with this drug for a period of up to 14 days.

Genetics expert from the Australian National University of Health and Medicine Gaetan Borgio explained that these experiments will consider a series of factors, including clinical outcomes (the effect on fever, cough, blood oxygen level, recovery time, and hospital stay), as well as the speed at which the body gets rid of The virus, through radiography and CT scan of patients to monitor the development of pneumonia.

"If we notice a significant decrease in clinical indicators and a lower concentration of the virus in groups of people being treated with a faviravir drug, this will be an encouraging indication for a wider clinical trial," Borgo told AFP.

What new do these experiences offer?

* If some doctors have tested a faviravir drug to treat patients with the emerging coronavirus, the tests will be carried out according to strict protocols intended to demonstrate that the drug is safe and effective for a wide range of patients.

"Small-scale studies have been published, but it is difficult to draw conclusions from them because the number of patients is small, and these trials often do not include a comparison with a symptom treatment or a placebo, but rather evaluates," said Stephen Griffin, an epidemiologist at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. Often compared to another drug.

He added that «large-scale trials should be distributed according to different levels of disease severity, and include comparisons with the use of a placebo.

What is the difference between it and other drugs?

* Many drugs are being tested in search of a cure for people with the emerging coronavirus, among them Remisevir, which is also an antiviral drug.

Griffin explained that a study on the two drugs showed that faviravir is effective against the emerging coronavirus only with relatively high concentrations, and concluded that the remdisifer drug is a better option, especially in light of the way the coronavirus reproduces compared to other viruses.

However, there is no license to the medicine remediffer anywhere in the world, and it should be given to patients by intravenous injection, while favipiravir is approved in several countries and may be taken orally.

When do we know if it is useful?

* Fujifilm test is expected to continue until the end of next June, while data from experiments in Italy and other countries will be received in the meantime. Additional information will also be available from the use of the medicine by doctors outside of the tests when other treatments available are not helpful.

"There are currently more than 300 clinical trials under way around Covid-19," he warned.

And he continued, "Great hopes are found for a miracle drug! But let's wait. "The best treatment today (Covid-19) is isolation, hand-washing and housekeeping."