Thursday, May 7, 2020

Japan donates Avigan free to 41 countries to fight covid but NCID advises against usage

Report by : Gan Yung Chyan
                  / KUCINTA SETIA

Image : Favipiravir marketed commercially under Avigan. Courtesy of Takaki Kashiwabara.

On 6 May 2020, The Nikkei Asian Review reported that Japan is donating the drug favipiravir marketed under the commercial name Avigan to Iran, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Turkey and other 37 countries affected by the covid pandemic after 7 May 2020. StayGate has conducted a search to see if Singapore is one of the beneficiary countries of Avigan. It appears that Singapore has not approved the usage of Avigan in Singaporean hospitals and clinics.

A document of the Singapore Ministry of Health (MOH) published on the ministry's official web-site advises against favipiravir usage. The document of MOH states that the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) does not recommend favipiravir for routine treatment of covid "due to the absence of good quality peer-reviewed data supporting its use".

Favipiravir, which originates from Japan under the commercial name Avigan, is not effective in patients with more severe symptoms, according to the Japan Ministry of Health. It is not a recommended drug for use in the treatment of covid in the People's Republic of China, where covid originates.

However, "open-label", randomized trials in Shenzhen and Wuhan show favipiravir's positive impact on the relieving of covid symptoms. In Shenzhen, trial using favipiravir has shown significant improvement in chest imaging, compared with patients receiving lopinavir/ritonavir. In Wuhan, covid patients without hypertension or diabetes recover better with favipiravir by 71.63% in a week-long clinical trial.

Avigan is developed by a unit of Fujifilm Holdings in Japan to treat severe forms of influenza including novel influenza (H1N1) and in China it is used to treat influenza. Many Japanese in Japan recommend Avigan to treat covid.


Refs : https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Japan-promises-free-Avigan-to-Iran-and-40-countries; https://www.moh.gov.sg/docs/librariesprovider5/clinical-evidence-summaries/favipiravir-for-covid-19-(updated-28-april-2020).pdfhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favipiravir

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