{"id":41025,"date":"2020-03-17T19:35:40","date_gmt":"2020-03-17T19:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/china-avigan-effective-in-tackling-coronavirus\/"},"modified":"2020-03-20T17:16:40","modified_gmt":"2020-03-20T17:16:40","slug":"china-avigan-effective-in-tackling-coronavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/china-avigan-effective-in-tackling-coronavirus\/","title":{"rendered":"China: Avigan effective in tackling coronavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Zhang Xinmin, director of the National Center for Biotechnology Development, named the drug at a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>He said the drug was found to be effective in clinical trials by two medical organizations in the country. He said the medicine worked for coronavirus-related symptoms including pneumonia and had no obvious side effects.<\/p>\n<p>The director said the tests were conducted in the cities of Wuhan and Shenzhen and involved 240 patients and 80 patients respectively.<\/p>\n<p>He said those who were given the medicine in Shenzhen turned negative for the virus after a median of four days after becoming positive, while it took a median of 11 days for those without the drug.<\/p>\n<p>The trial also found that X-ray photos confirmed improvements in lung conditions in about 91 percent of the patients who were given the medicine. The number stood at 62 percent for those without the drug.<\/p>\n<p>The director said the drug is highly safe and its effect is obvious, and formally recommends the use of the medicine as a way to tackle the virus.<\/p>\n<p>A Chinese firm that has licensed the drug from its Japanese developers got government approval last month to mass-produce the medication.<\/p>\n<p>China on Monday confirmed 21 new cases of the virus infections, bringing the total in the country to more than 80,000. It&#8217;s death toll now stands at 3,226.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-35240 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/favipiravir_-avigan-coronavirus.jpg\" alt=\"China&#039;s government researchers say they have found the Japanese-developed anti-flu drug Avigan effective in treating patients infected with the new coronavirus \" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>China&#8217;s government researchers say they have found the Japanese-developed anti-flu drug Avigan effective in treating patients infected with the new coronavirus and will promote its use.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-41025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41025\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41025"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=41025"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=41025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}