Venezuela Advances in Sanitary Protocols to Use Russian Covid-19 Medicine

Venezuela is making progress in the necessary health protocols to acquire Avifavir, the Russian medicine designed for patients with COVID-19, Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza told Sputnik.

“We have already advanced some of the sanitary and bureaucratic procedures to be able to obtain this medicine for the treatment of patients with COVID-19, so soon I think we will see it in Venezuela,” he said in statements offered to Sputnik.

Avifavir is the first drug to be approved in Russia as a treatment for COVID-19, and its active ingredient is the antiviral favipiravir, a drug mainly used to treat influenza and which has even been shown to have some efficacy against Ebola.

According to the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDFI), the drug has been effective in patients with COVID-19, in three independent clinical studies conducted in the Eurasian country during tests of 700 patients with a confirmed diagnosis of coronavirus.

Minister Arreaza noted that Venezuela is proud of the close relationship it maintains with Russia and said that it admires the scientific capacity of that country.

“On the vaccine we also feel admiration for the scientific capacity of Russia that they report it is already in a final clinical trial period and that they will soon start vaccinating the population,” he added.

Russian vaccine
On the other hand, he indicated that the Venezuelan government hopes that this certified vaccine will soon arrive in Venezuela to be able to vaccinate the population.

Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said on Saturday that they plan to start mass free vaccination against the new coronavirus in October.

Murashko indicated that clinical trials of the vaccine developed by the National Center for Epidemiological Research and Microbiology “Gamalei” have already concluded, and commented that for now its state registry is being processed.

Venezuela reached 20,206 COVID-19 infections on Sunday, of which 8,228 are active and 174 have died.

Featured image: File photo.

(Venezuelan MFA)

Translation: OT/JRE/EF