Favipiravir versus standard of care in patients with severe COVID-19 infections: A retrospective comparative study

Abstract

Objective To assess the efficacy of Favipiravir compared to the standard therapy in treating patients with severe COVID-19 infection. Methods This is a retrospective cohort of patients with COVID-19 pneumonia who were treated with favipiravir, versus comparison group that received the standard of care. Results A total of 226 patients were included; 110 patients received favipiravir and 116 patients received standard of care. Patients who received favipiravir had longer time to recovery (14.2 ± 8.8 versus 12.8 ± 5.2, p = 0.17 ). Favipiravir was associated with an improved early day 14 mortality (4 [3.6%] versus 11 [9.5%]), p = 0.008), but was associated with a higher day 28 mortality (26 [23.6%] versus 11 [9.5%], p = 0.02). The overall mortality was higher in the favipiravir versus the standard of care group but difference was not statistically significant (33 [30.0%] versus 24 [20.7%], p = 0.10). Conclusion The addition of favipiravir to standard of care was not associated with any improvement in clinical outcomes or mortality. Larger randomized controlled clinical trials are needed to further assess the efficacy of favipiravir.

Early use of tocilizumab in solid organ transplant recipients with COVID‐19: A retrospective cohort study in Saudi Arabia

“…3 The same pattern of COVID-19 severity was reported in Saudi Arabia with various clinical presentations including mild, moderate, and critical cases; in addition to asymptomatic cases. [4][5][6][7][8] Previous studies showed that COVID-19 disease is associated with an increase in plasma concentrations of cytokines and inflammatory markers including elevation of ferritin, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), D-dimer, and C-reactive protein (CRP). [9][10][11] Additionally, lung tissue histopathology examination of COVID-19 deceased patients showed inflammatory cellular infiltration, proteinaceous exudate, and evidence of extensive alveolar edema.…”

Liver Injury in Favipiravir-Treated COVID-19 Patients: Retrospective Single-Center Cohort Study

“…One of the antiviral medications used in COVID-19 management is FPV [ 31 ]. Because of the limited published evidence about FPV safety in COVID-19 treatment, the current retrospective single-center cohort research aimed to assess FPV’s safety for the liver in managing COVID-19 cases in Saudi Arabia, specifically in Jeddah’s General East Jeddah Hospital.…”

“…There were two groups of COVID-19 patients in this retrospective cohort: one was treated with FVP, while the other was treated with standard care to compare the efficacy of FVP [ 31 ]. In our study, we followed the same study design as the retrospective cohort study but evaluated the liver injury caused by FVP.…”

Overview of clinical outcome and therapeutic effectiveness of Favipiravir in patients with COVID-19 admitted to intensive care unit, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

“…FVP directly and selectively blocks the replication of flavi-RNA, alpha-RNA, filo-RNA, bunya-RNA, arena-RNA, noro-RNA, and other RNA viruses [26] , [27] . [28] , [29] . In cells, FVP is transformed to an active phosphoribosylated form (favipiravir-ribofuranosyl-5'-triphosphateRTP), which is recognized as a substrate by viral RNA polymerase and inhibits RNA polymerase activity [25] , [28] , which might theoretically make it effective against SARS.-CoV-2 Early clinical experience with FVP in two trials showed favorable therapeutic responses in terms of viral clearance in adult inpatients infected with COVID-19 [27] , [30] .…”