China’s Health Ministry: Fujifilm’s anti-flu drug effective in treating coronavirus

Zhang Xinmin, an official at China’s science and technology ministry, announced that favipiravir, also known as Avigan developed by a subsidiary of Fujifilm, had produced encouraging outcomes in clinical trials in Wuhan and Shenzhen involving 340 coronavirus patients. Avigan is an experimental antiviral used to treat RNA viruses, which has shown efficacy against influenza derivatives, yellow fever, foot-and-mouth disease and numerous others. It has also shown an effect against Ebola and Zika virus, and recent clinical trials have demonstrated its efficacy against the novel coronavirus. Addressing the media, Xinmin said, “It has a high degree of safety and is effective in treatment.” According to reports, Japanese doctors are using this drug in clinical studies on coronavirus patients with mild to moderate symptoms and hoping it will prevent the virus from multiplying in patients. However, a Japanese health ministry source also mentioned that the drug was not as effective in people with more severe symptoms. “We’ve given Avigan to 70 to 80 people, but it doesn’t seem to work that well when the virus has already…

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