By Hudson Kuteesa, KIGALI Rwanda
The
Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC) has said that Favipiravir is showing good
results in treating mild cases of Covid-19 in the country.
The drug was introduced in the country in January as medics sought for solutions to strengthen the efforts in place for the treatment of people infected with the coronavirus.
Rwanda procured 18,000
doses of the drug, some of which have already been used on patients in the
country.
Speaking about the
impact the drug has had on patients, Dr Sabin Nsanzimana, Director-General,
RBC, said medics have since noticed a positive trend.
“The medicine is
performing well. We are using it on mild cases and have seen good outcomes. For
example, when patients with symptoms like headache and tiredness were given the
drug, their situation improved,” he said.
Meanwhile, Rwanda is
looking at additional methods to treat Covid-19 patients. According to
information from the Ministry of Health, the country may soon start to use
monoclonal antibodies to treat the disease.
Monoclonal antibodies
are a class of medicines that are made up of laboratory-made proteins that
mimic the immune system’s ability to fight off harmful pathogens such as
viruses.
Favipiravir is an
antiviral medication which works by inhibiting viral replication through
termination of viral protein synthesis and arresting its survival.
The drug is developed
and manufactured by Fujifilm Holdings Corporation, a Japanese multinational
medical equipment and biotechnology company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.
Initially, it was
approved in Japan for the management of emerging pandemic influenza infections
in 2014, and it is indicated for novel influenza strains that cause more severe
disease rather than seasonal flu.
The current situation
implies that the drug is being repurposed to treat Covid-19.
According to
information from the US’s National Centre for Biotechnology Information,
Favipiravir was first used against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) in Wuhan, the
epicentre of the pandemic.
Then, as the pandemic
spread to Europe, this drug received approval for emergency use in Italy, and
currently has been in use in Japan, Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Moldova, and
Kazakhstan. Approval has also recently been granted in Saudi Arabia and the
UAE.
Thereafter, Turkey,
Bangladesh, and most recently Egypt have also commercially launched it.
In June 2020,
Favipiravir received approval of the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) in
India for mild and moderate Covid-19 infections.
According to a study
published on December 14, 2020, by the US’s National Centre for Biotechnology
Information titled “Use in Covid-19: Analysis of Suspected Adverse Drug Events
Reported in the WHO Database”, Favipiravir appears to be a relatively safe
drug.
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