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Subhrojyoti Bhowmick1*, Suddha Chatterjee2, Sanket Bandyopadhyay3, Soumyo Sarathi Ganguly4, Debarati Kundu5 and Sujit KarPurkayastha6
1Pharmacology, Certified in Patient Safety (Johns Hopkins University, USA), FISQua (U.K) and Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacology, KPC Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata, India
2Microbiology Student, St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, India
3Biotechnology Student, Ramaiah College of Arts Science and Commerce, Bangalore, India
4Studying Integrated MSc-PhD in Chemical and Molecular Biology, School of Bioscient, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India
5Clinical Research Coordinator at Peerless Hospitex Hospital and Research Center Ltd, Kolkata, India
6Department of Gastroenterology, Peerless Hospitex Hospital and Research Center Ltd, Kolkata, India
*Corresponding Author: Subhrojyoti Bhowmick, Pharmacology, Certified in Patient Safety (Johns Hopkins University, USA), FISQua (U.K) and Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacology, KPC Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata, India.
Received: August 24, 2020; Published: September 28, 2020
Novel Coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic was first reported in Wuhan City, China in December 2019. According to WHO database the spread of infection has resulted in over 30 million infected people and over 943000 deaths worldwide till 19th September, 2020. Till date, unavailability of vaccines and specific antiviral drugs is a cause of grave concern. Worldwide,the search for the specific antiviral medication is underway. The Drug controller General of India (DCGI) has recently approved Favipiravir for emergency usage in mild to moderate Covid19 Indian patients. Favipiravir, an old antiviral drug marketed under the brand name Avigan by Fujifilm Toyama Chemical Co. Ltd, Japan, originally produced for Ebola Virus Disease has shown affirmative results in the treatment of COVID-19 across the globe. This article is an updated literature review conducted to determine the efficacy and safety of the drug Favipiravir (FPV) in general and in the treatment of COVID-19 across the globe. An extensive search was performed using keywords such as Favipiravir and SARSCoV-2 in platforms like Google Scholar and PubMed for the time period of 1st June 2000 to 31st July 2020. Common adverse effects of the drug include increased Liver enzymes and hyperuricaemia. Trials reported from Japan and Russia has proved the efficacy and safety of Favipiravir in Covid19 although published data from an Indian clinical trial is awaited. It appears to be a promising drug considering its oral formulation and safety profile, however, efficacy data from Indian patients are still awaited to recommend its wide spread usage.
Keywords: Favipiravir; COVID-19; Coronavirus
Citation: Subhrojyoti Bhowmick., et al. “Emergency Approval of Favipiravir for Covid19 Infection in India". Acta Scientific Pharmaceutical Sciences 4.10 (2020): 120-126.
Copyright: © 2020 Subhrojyoti Bhowmick., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.