New drug to treat coronavirus approved for marketing

While the Asian country of china is still fighting with the deadly coronavirus epidemic, there is a new ray of light which has brought some hopes of recovery. An anti-viral drug known as Favipiravir has shown some potential that could treat the virus and has also been approved for marketing. The information on the drug was announced by the Taizhou government of Zhejiang province on February 16, 2020.

The new drug is approved to treat influenza and is also one of the three drugs that are effective to treat coronavirus in humans. The drug has been manufactured by Zhejiang Hisun Pharmaceutical Company and has been given an green signal by the National Medical Products Administration said that the drug manufacturer has met the needs to manufacture the generic form of the drug Favipiravir. However, the National Medical products Administration also said that company has to first complete the incomplete research in pharmacy and clinical pharmacology.

The drug company has to now conduct a clinical trial for which it has also received an approval. Clinical trials mean that the new drug which has been approved will be tried on patients who are suffering from coronavirus pneumonia. On the other hand the drug has already been tried on humans in Shenzhen. Zhang Xinmin, the chief at China National Centre for Biotechnology Department informed that the drug has been tried on patients at Shenzhen, in Guangdong province and people have remarkably improved.

The results of the drugs so far are promising and there are a few mild adverse reactions on the patients. Meanwhile, Japan and Thailand have started to use HIV drugs to treat coronavirus as it has also shown some amazing results in a very short span. The discovery was made by the doctors in Thailand, where patients are now being treated with a combination of flu and HIV drugs. The Coronavirus epidemic started off in December 2019 in China and has now spread in a number of countries.

Photo Credits: Pixabay