The first day of the II Interregional Medical Forum «Technologies for Effective Health Care» has ended in Yekaterinburg. At the meeting of the Infectious Safety section, leading experts made reports on the fight against a new coronavirus infection, including the question of the effectiveness of the drug Triazavirin in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.

So, Vice-Rector of the Ural State Medical University (USMU), Head of the Department of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Immunology Alebay Sabitov presented the results of an assessment of the therapeutic efficacy and safety of Triazavirin in coronavirus infection.

In clinical studies, patients with COVID-19 took the drug one capsule three times a day for seven days as monotherapy.

«A total of 120 patients were included in the study, two thirds of whom were women aged 40 and over. 16% of them had comorbidity. We assessed the proportion of patients with positive clinical dynamics after 3, 10 and 12 days from the start of therapy, as well as the duration of symptoms, the proportion of patients with clinical progression of the disease, with negative results of PCR examination on days 10-12, and, of course, we monitored laboratory parameters» Alebay Sabitov said.

As a result, on the third day, 50% of patients experienced clinical improvement, and by the 12th day, almost 96% recovered, the infectious disease specialist noted:

«As for complications: on the third day, a suspicion of pneumonia arose in one person, but it was not confirmed. We state that all 120 people had no complications. The test results for the release of SARS-CoV-2 on the 11th day were negative in 88%, on the 12th – in 97%. If we talk about the duration of symptoms against the background of treatment, then the longest persisted symptoms of the general plan (weakness, headache, loss of smell and taste).  Another study was devoted to assessing the preventive efficacy and safety of Triazavirin in foci of coronavirus infection.  It was attended by 113 contact persons on COVID-19 – mainly, it was about family outbreaks. They took one capsule once a day for 20 days.

«The protocol of the study was to keep self-observation diaries for all 20 days, weekly PCR examination, and laboratory control. The proportion of patients who had a comorbid pathology was a little more than 20% (in most cases it was hypertension)»  Alebay Sabitov said .

Константин Жданов – российский учёный-инфекционист, главный инфекционист МО РФ

Konstantin Zhdanov, Chief infectious disease specialist of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and Head of the Department of Infectious Diseases of the  Military Medical Academy named after S.M.Kirov  also spoke about the features of approaches to COVID-19 therapy.  The specialist told how care was organized for patients with coronavirus infection in St. Petersburg. He separately mentioned the features of the Standard for the diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 among the RF Armed Forces personnel:

«These guidelines do not contain hydroxychloroquine, antimalarial drugs, azithromycin. But we have long known the drug Triazavirin, which is produced in the Sverdlovsk region – we got very good experience when working with it in patients with adenovirus infection».

Scientists from the Military Medical Academy also decided to use Triazavirin to treat coronavirus patients and conducted the relevant research. One group of patients received Triazavirin, and the other – a combination of Arbidol with Ribavirin. According to all indicators, patients from the first group recovered faster, and according to laboratory indicators, the second group showed signs of a hepatotoxic effect, which was not the case when taking Triazavirin. Clinical improvement against the background of Triazavirin occurred on average on the fifth day, and against the background of Arbidol with Ribavirin – on the 15th day. Those taking Triazavirin had a negative PCR on the 5-7th day of illness, and in the second case, it took two to three times longer to wait for a negative result. Konstantin Zhdanov also noted that the Ural drug was included in the recommendations of the Moscow Department of Health as an effective treatment for the new coronavirus infection.