Russia is all set to roll out its first approved drug to treat coronavirus patients next week. The hospitals in the country will begin giving the patients the approved antiviral drug named Avifavir from June 11, Reuters reported. The head of Russia’s RDIF sovereign wealth fund told the global news agency that the company behind the drug would manufacture enough to treat nearly 60,000 people a month. There is currently no vaccine for coronavirus all across the world.
Avifavir, known generically as favipiravir, was first developed in the late 1990s by a Japanese company later bought by Fujifilm as it moved into healthcare. Further, RDIF head Kirill Dmitriev said Russian scientists have successfully conducted clinical trials of the drug involving 330 people.
Even as multiple vaccine candidates have entered various levels of trials, experts believe that a vaccine might not be found before next year. So far, globally, ten vaccine candidates are getting tested on healthy volunteers, while 114 are in preliminary stages of development. Even the Indian pharma firms are actively contributing to the cause.
Oxford University’s vaccine is based on an adenovirus vaccine vector and the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Its testing began in April. Of the four candidates in China, Sinovac Biotech has shown the most promising results so far. These four are inactivated vaccines or contain actual virus particles. The remaining don’t need the virus.
