People gather for shopping from roadside vendors on a street ahead of a two-day lockdown across West Bengal, in Kolkata yesterday.
Agencies/Bengaluru: Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd said yesterday its version of anti-flu drug favipiravir showed promise in a late-stage study of 150 patients with mild to moderate coronavirus infection.
Data showed that patients receiving FabiFlu shook off the virus about 29% faster that those receiving standard supportive care.
About 70% of the patients being treated with the drug achieved “clinical cure” by the fourth day of the study, compared with about 45% in the standard care group, the company said in a statement.
Clinical cure is defined as a physician’s assessment of the normalisation of clinical signs of Covid-19 such as temperature, oxygen saturation, respiratory rate and cough.
FabiFlu was also well tolerated with no serious adverse events or deaths in the treatment arm, the company said, adding that it plans to submit the study data for peer review in the coming weeks.
Glenmark last month received Indian regulatory approval to make and sell FabiFlu for restricted emergency use in patients with mild-to-moderate Covid-19 symptoms, and last week cut the price of the drug to Rs75 ($1.01) per tablet.
In other developments, a Delhi minister said a serologic survey will be conducted in the national capital every month to find out how many people have developed antibodies from the coronavirus.
Health Minister Satyendar Jain said the next survey will be held between August 1 and 5.
Addressing a press conference, Jain said more samples will be taken this time compared to the last.
During the last survey 21,387 samples were collected.
The blood tests on the randomly selected people conducted by the National Center for Disease Control found that 23.48% of them had IgG antibodies – indicating past exposure to the virus.
With Delhi’s population of more than 20mn, the findings published on Tuesday by the federal health ministry suggest that 4.7mn people have had the virus, almost 40 times the official tally of 125,000.
While praising government restrictions that have limited the spread of the virus, the ministry said the study “indicates that a large number of infected persons remain asymptomatic”.
The survey was conducted between June 27 and July 10.
And more than 75% are still vulnerable, including those at higher risk, Sujeet Kumar Singh, head of the National Centre for Disease Control, told a news conference.
Yesterday, the federal health ministry reported a total of 1.19mn coronavirus cases so far with almost 29,000 deaths.
Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu states are the worst affected.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government imposed one of the world’s strictest lockdowns in late March, but it has been steadily eased in recent months to lessen the devastating economic impact.
But, independently from the federal government, states have been tightening restrictions as case numbers have soared – including in Bengaluru, Bihar, West Bengal and parts of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
Daily new cases have been steadily falling in recent weeks, with fewer than 1,000 new infections recorded on Tuesday – the first time in 49 days – down from a peak of almost 4,000 in late June .Source: l
