Egypt conducts research on Remdesivir, excluded Avigan from studies: top official

CAIRO – 3 July 2020: The quarantine hospitals in Egypt currently make researches on drugs including the Ebola drug Remdesivir, as well as other drugs originally developed to treat parasite infections or Hepatitis C, to treat coronavirus patients, Noha Essam, advisor to the Health Minister told Egypt Today.

Essam’s remarks come shortly before the European Commission announced on Friday granting conditional approval for antiviral Remdesivir for coronavirus treatment. Egypt has already started to produce the drug.

The antiparasitic drug Ivermectin is under research in Egypt and is expected to show good results, Essam said, adding that the ministry will present the results of the research within a month.

Essam, however, warned against taking any coronavirus drugs without medical consultation, affirming that all remedies or vaccines thought to be effective with coronavirus are still under research.

On the other side, the Egyptian Health Ministry has excluded Japan’s Favipiravir drug sold under the brand name Avigan from studies.

Concerning convalescent plasma therapy, which Egypt has already used with many cases, Essam said it has shown significant and strong results but it does not work with all cases. She added that Minister of Health Hala Zayed will announce the results of the plasma therapy trials in Egypt within 15 days.

Essam added that plasma therapy did not work with cases in critical conditions.

The Oxford vaccine is the closest among others to enter the stage of real production, Essam said, but added that its experiments have not yet been finished.



Egypt has recorded, Thursday, 1,485 new coronavirus cases, upping the total number of confirmed cases to 71,299.

In a statement, Spokesman for the Health Ministry Khaled Megahed said 86 patients have died from the virus over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 3,120.

As many as 19,288 people have so far recovered from the virus and left hospital, the spokesman said.

Note: Official coronavirus figures are usually lower than the real number in each country, as many cases do not report their illness.