Antiviral Drugs To Be Discontinued In COVID-19 Treatment - NCDC

The Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, has said that the agency would end its prescription of antiviral drugs in the treatment of COVID-19 patients, as it reels out a new set of guidelines for the treatment of the deadly virus.

The NCDC DG disclosed this on Thursday during the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 briefing in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

He said that the agency was compelled to come to end the administration of antiviral drugs in the treatment of the coronavirus after it did some research on case management.

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“We have removed the use of antivirals from our treatment guidelines,” he said 

He added, “We reached out to some antiviral drugs. One that was in our guidelines recently was the lopinavir/ritonavir combination, which is a combination of medicines we use for HIV. So, we look for whatever we have to try.

“As evidence emerges and science improves, then we have to start making hard choices. There have been quite a number of studies now that have shown that they don’t really improve the outcome of this illness, so we’ve withdrawn them from the guidelines of management.”