Ministry of Health changes the list of drugs for the treatment of coronavirus

An updated, 10th in a row, list of medicines recommended by the Ministry of Health for the treatment of COVID-19 in adults has been published in Russia. It includes five drugs: "Favipiravir", "Remdesivir", "Hydroxychloroquine", recombinant "IFN α", "Umifenovir".

“The previous version of the recommendations included six drugs, the new document excluded azithromycin”, - RIA Novosti reports.

All drugs on the list are prohibited from prescribing to pregnant women. According to the new standards of the Ministry of Health, patients who are expecting a child have the right to take only recombinant IFN-α2b.

The department clarifies that it is possible to prescribe antibiotics to patients only in cases where they have "convincing signs" of the development of a bacterial infection against the background of coronavirus. Earlier, from a number of regions there were complaints about the unjustified prescription of antibiotics to patients who have no signs of bacterial infection.

Also, in the new version of the recommendations, outpatient and inpatient treatment regimens were improved, depending on the severity of the course of the disease, and the approaches to the Ministry of Health also clarified recommendations for providing medical care to patients with cancer and chronic kidney disease. In addition, the department indicated the rules for dispensary observation of patients who have undergone coronavirus.

Since September last year, for the treatment of COVID-19 on an outpatient basis, the Ministry of Health has recommended two domestic drugs - Coronavir from R-Pharm and Areplivir from Promomed, setting maximum selling prices for them. Both antiviral drugs are domestic analogues of the drug with the international non-proprietary name "Favipiravir".