Favipiravir effective in treating mild cases of Covid-19 - Rwandan expert

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.