New recommendations of the Ministry of Health, or why we cannot be cured of Covid-19

Irina Mishina

Since the beginning of the pandemic, people have started buying up everything that they thought was necessary to fight the coronavirus - from lemons and ginger to expensive drugs. If someone does not know, drugs for covid are not cheap at all. Medicines appeared and disappeared as if by magic. For example, at one time azithromycin disappeared from pharmacy counters. At all. And when there were people who had gone through the covid reanimation hell, there were rumors that the infection was being treated with hormonal drugs. After that, prednisolone with dexamethasone disappeared from pharmacies en masse.

The new virus has misled the entire global medical community, researchers and experts. Patients with the slightest suspicion of covid drink and arbidol, and azithromycin, and antimalarial drugs, and many other sometimes completely useless drugs - just to recover. Another thing is interesting: the pandemic lasts almost a year and a half, and there is still no effective cure for covid.

Why are Covid-19 treatment regimens updated now? Allergist immunologist Vladimir Bolibok linked the 12th update of guidelines to the spread of new strains of coronavirus. "We have a delta strain, and in South America there is already a mu strain, the coronavirus is changing quite quickly, and therefore it is necessary to constantly adjust the methodological recommendations. They indicate our ideas about how to treat. New ones are also indicated there. drugs that have been registered", - he explained.

“The regimens that helped in the treatment of the Wuhan strain do not work in most cases now. It has been proven that the delta strain spreads much faster in the body compared to the Wuhan strain. Accordingly, the viral load on the body is many times higher. The Wuhan strain has an incubation period of 2 weeks, while the delta strains have an incubation period of 3-4 days. Accordingly, new drugs and more aggressive treatment are needed at the very onset of the disease. Given that vaccination is sagging, preventive measures and more serious drugs were required, which are used at an early stage", - a researcher of coronavirus treatment methods Veniamin Zaitsev-Friedshtand explained to Novye Izvestia.

“From the innovations: hormonal preparations have been added for inhalation. A new drug, Budosonit, has appeared in the schemes for a mild course of the disease. Antifungal therapy was added, drugs were included to prevent complications of the gastrointestinal tract. Antimalarial drugs that were previously used to treat covid have been dropped from treatment protocols. Arbidol was also excluded from the treatment protocols as ineffective, ” virologist Yevgeny Timakov explained to Novye Izvestia.

Doctors with whom NI was able to talk, pay attention to the typical mistakes that are encountered in the treatment of coronavirus infection. First of all, about antibiotics. In fact, the prescription of antibiotics and hormone therapy before hospitalization can lead to very unfortunate consequences. Antibiotics do not relieve the temperature with covid, the symptoms do not eliminate. Today it has already been established that antibiotics have no effect on the coronavirus itself. It remains a mystery that these same antibiotics figured in the treatment protocols for covid for a long time.

Of course, the correct use of drugs for coronavirus is important. But looking through the next (already 12th) update of the recommendations of the Ministry of Health, one involuntarily asks the question: why does it take so much time to be convinced of the usefulness or harm of this or that drug? How much has been said, for example, about the benefits of arbidol, which was considered almost a panacea for covid and was handed out for free at the slightest suspicion of coronavirus! And here you are - arbidol is no longer needed. What is the reason for the change in landmarks?

Let's figure it out. The coronavirus epidemic lasts for almost a year and a half. However, so far not a single drug has been named that would be ideal for the treatment of Covid-19. The Ministry of Health only offers various variations and seems to be testing something new on patients. This plays into the hands of the pharmaceutical industry, for which the pandemic has literally become a "gold mine". At the same time, mind you, the prices for drugs that are included in the treatment protocols for covid are by no means "budgetary". So, areplivir, which today is considered one of the most effective antioxidant drugs, breaks a record: the price for 1 package is almost 5 thousand rubles. And there are several such packages per course. The anti-thrombosis drug rivaroxaban (Xarelto), which is included in the mandatory treatment protocols, costs about 3 thousand per pack. I will note that I was personally prescribed it within 3 months after the transferred covid. This is far from 1 package, and not even 2.

At the end of last year, most representatives of the domestic pharmaceutical industry have already been able to make money on this "treatment" of coronavirus. Experts have established that among them billionaire Alexey Repik (R-Pharm), the owners of the Otechestvennye Medicines holding, including the former Deputy Chairman of the Federal Mandatory Health Insurance Fund Dmitry Reikhart , and the owner of the Pharmstandard holding Viktor Kharitonin. Oligarchs do not stop from pharmaceuticals and go to new frontiers. That is, drugs. So, recently the company "Valenta Pharm" announced the beginning of trials of effectiveness in the treatment of Covid-19 of its drug Ingavirin. The drug is generally known, but what does it have to do with the coronavirus? Interestingly, his clinical trials should last until 2023, but a special government decree allows the work to be completed ahead of schedule in an epidemic. So soon, it is possible, the protocols of the Ministry of Health will be replenished with a new medicine.

In general, the story with this very ingavirin is mysterious. According to DSM Group, Ingavirin is currently one of the best-selling antiviral drugs in the country. Last year alone, the Russians bought the advertised Ingavirin for 11 billion rubles. It is interesting to note that this is not the first time Ingavirin has surfaced in the wake of the epidemic. The time of the appearance of this drug on the Russian pharmaceutical market falls on 2009, which coincided with the swine flu pandemic declared by the WHO. Then the manufacturers announced that the drug "easily integrates into the genome of the virus and quickly destroys it" and that "there is nowhere else in the world with the same effect of the drug." At the same time, the Ministry of Health, in an expedited manner, included Ingavirin in the list of vital drugs. It is interesting to note that, for some reason, Ingavirin has not undergone full-fledged clinical studies since 2009. At the same time, it cannot be ruled out that it may appear in the next updated methodological recommendations of the Ministry of Health. And then, if something goes wrong, it will suddenly disappear, like arbidol. We have such stories with medicines. For example, something similar happened with the drug Kaletra. R-Pharm of the oligarch Alexei Repik last year launched the production of this drug under the license of the American campaign AbbVie. And the Ministry of Health, as if by magic, in early 2020, includes it in the recommendations for the treatment of coronavirus. More than 5 billion rubles were spent on the state purchase of drugs based on lopinavir / ritonavir. People bought it in pharmacies for 2.5 thousand rubles. per packing. But then the kaletra suddenly disappeared from the shelves. They say, after it turned out: the coronavirus is not cured by this. Well, absolutely. I remember that the recommendations of the Ministry of Health in this regard were again edited. No getting used to...

“The regimens that helped in the treatment of the Wuhan strain do not work in most cases now. It has been proven that the delta strain spreads much faster in the body compared to the Wuhan strain. Accordingly, the viral load on the body is many times higher. The Wuhan strain has an incubation period of 2 weeks, while the delta strains have an incubation period of 3-4 days. Accordingly, new drugs and more aggressive treatment are needed at the very onset of the disease. Given that vaccination is sagging, preventive measures and more serious drugs were required, which are used at an early stage, "explained to NI, a researcher of coronavirus treatment methods Veniamin Zaitsev-Friedshtand.