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First batch of Russian anti-COVID-19 drug sent to hospitals

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First batch of Russian anti-COVID-19 drug sent to hospitals


11.06.2020

Photo credit: koronavirus.center

The first batch of Avifavir, a Russian medicine against coronavirus infection, has been delivered to Russian hospitals, TASS reports. The drug was transferred to clinics and pharmaceutical organizations in Yekaterinburg, Kirov, Nizhny Novgorod, Leningrad regions, as well as in the Moscow region and Tatarstan.

It is planned that this month hospitals will receive 60,000 courses of the drug. If such a need arises, they promise to increase the production of the drug to two million courses per year.

Clinical trials of the Russian Avifavir took place earlier in several COVID centers and ended successfully. The drug has proven to be highly effective in the treatment of patients with COVID-19. According to studies, the elimination of the virus from the patient's body requires an average of about four days. In the control group, this process required twice as much time.

Previously, Japanese scientists created Favipiravir to treat diseases caused by RNA viruses. When the epidemic of coronavirus infection began, it was used by Chinese and Japanese doctors. At the same time, the patent, which gave a monopoly on the release of the drug, ended in 2019. Many pharmaceutical companies have begun working on a copy of this medicine. The pandemic particularly spurred work.

The ChemRar company supported by the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) was the first to produce the drug in Russia. This medicine has the same active substance as Favipiravir. 

According to Kirill Dmitriev, head of the RDIF, Avifavir could be the most promising anti-COVID-19 drug in the world. He recalled that Avifavir was the first registered drug based on Favipiravir.

Kirill Dmitriev assured that the drug would be free for Russians under the compulsory health insurance program. Negotiations are underway on its deliveries to almost all regions of the country. The fund has also received requests for the supply of the drug in more than ten countries.

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