Arbidol Manufacturer Urged The Media To Follow The Recommendations Of The Ministry Of Health

2023 Author: Abraham Higgins | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 23:16

Arbidol manufacturer urged the media to follow the recommendations of the Ministry of Health

We will remind, earlier the Ministry of Health included a drug with a dubious reputation in the list of recommended for the fight against coronavirus. The journalists were also asked to rely on “specialized publications” and sources of the manufacturer itself in their assessments of Arbidol.

Photo: arbidol.ru

In the cover letter to the appeal of Olga Mednikova, CEO of pharmaceutical company OTCPharm, journalists were encouraged to “use reliable information published in specialized medical publications, clinical guidelines, official information sources of OTCPharm JSC when creating materials”.

The authors of the letter noted that many media outlets are now publishing articles on methods of treating the new disease and even making independent reviews of the drugs used against the new virus. “It seems important to us, as a pharmaceutical company producing the drug Arbidol (INN: Umifenovir), to draw your attention to the need to carefully check the data you publish on the drug, to ask you to exclude the possibility of incorrect reporting of information about the drug Arbidol,” the letter says. …

Arbidol - a marketing ploy in the fight against COVID-19?

We figure out where the myth about the effectiveness of arbidol in the fight against COVID-19 came from

Read the article

Note that the World Health Organization (WHO) recognized the clinical trials of the drug Arbidol, conducted from 1993 to 2004, of insufficient quality to meet the requirements of evidence-based medicine. The drug is still not listed in the WHO guidelines for the treatment of influenza.

In January, arbidol hit the news agenda thanks to aggressive marketing: it was said on the radio and in VKontakte groups with a large audience that arbidol can be cured of COVID-19. As evidence, it was mentioned that the instructions for use of the drug indicated that it is a cure for coronavirus. Actors and bloggers also announced the miraculous power of the drug. Against this background, sales of arbidol in just three weeks increased by 18% compared to last year. As a result, the FAS suspected the manufacturer of unfair advertising and threatened with legal action. However, news about the effectiveness of arbidol in the fight against coronavirus continues to appear on the network.

“At the moment, there is no evidence that any of the drugs are effective against COVID-19. There are no specific treatments for this type of coronavirus. Treatment is based on the clinical picture,”said the official representative of the World Health Organization Tarik Yazarevich.

In early May, scientists from China published the results of a study on the effectiveness of arbidol, as well as a combination of lopinavir / ritonavir (LPV / r)

"We found that neither LPV / r nor Arbidol can improve the clinical picture in patients and that they can cause some side effects," the scientists said, noting that doctors should use these drugs with caution, and researchers should continue to search for a truly effective drug for coronavirus.