YEKATERINBURG, March 19. /TASS/: Trials of Russian antiviral drug Triazaverin, which is being tested against the novel coronavirus infection in China, are scheduled for completion in May, the head of the drug’s manufacturer Medsintez told TASS on Thursday.
A humanitarian batch of the medicine was sent to China in late January, and its tests against the novel coronavirus began shortly after.
"The trials are to be over in late May," Medsintez board chairman Alexander Petrov said. "I wrote an official letter to China’s consul general in Yekaterinburg, asking to provide us with the results, but received no response so far."
Triazavirin is a broad-spectrum antiviral drug developed in Russia through a joint effort of Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg-based Postovsky Institute of Organic Synthesis (Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences) and the Russian Health Ministry’s Smorodintsev Research Institute of Influenza. According to its developers, the medicine is effective against 15 types of influenza.
The coronavirus outbreak, which began in late 2019 in China, has spread to over 130 countries and the WHO recognized it as a global pandemic. According to latest reports, more than 200,000 people contracted the disease worldwide, and 8,000 of them died. Russia has registered 147 infection cases so far.
