The race is currently on to develop effective treatment and a vaccine against the coronavirus, whose outbreak has been causing a lot of panic and fear around the world. However, it seems that there might already be a medicine out there that could actually be rather effective against the coronavirus.
According to the Chinese government, they are claiming that an influenza medication developed by Japan by in 2014 has proven to be effective in treating the coronavirus. The medication, developed by a Fujifilm Holdings group member, is said to not only be safe, but also effective, where the Chinese government is planning on officially recommending the medication to be used in treatments of the coronavirus.
In a news conference, Zhang Xinmin, director of the science ministry’s China National Center for Biotechnology Development was quoted as saying, “It has a high degree of safety and is clearly effective in treatment.” During a clinical trial conducted in hospitals in Wuhan and Shenzhen, patients who received the medication tested negative for the virus in a shorter period of time, with pneumonia symptoms improving at a higher rate.
However, it should be noted that the trial only involved 200 patients, so we can’t say for sure how well it will scale up, so maybe we should approach this with cautious optimism. Also, this is not the first treatment found to have proven effective. Previously, there were some patients who were treated using HIV medication which was also found to have helped.
Filed in . Read more about China, Coronavirus, Covid-19 and Health. Source: asia.nikkei