Study on synthesis of medication Favipiravir for the treatment of Sars-Cov-2

The COVID-19 pandemic is currently raging in many countries around the world, especially now there are some new variants such as Alpha, Delta and Delta plus. This virus variant is capable of spreading quickly and is difficult to control, seriously affecting the health and economic development of many countries around the world. So far, there have been about 180,779,995 infections and 3,916,337 deaths in the world; in Vietnam, the total number of infections so far is about 14,323 cases and 74 deaths due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Currently, the research, licensing, production and vaccination of a number of vaccines such as AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson have contributed to effectively preventing the COVID-19 pandemic. However, due to the emergence of many new strains that are resistant to vaccines, antiviral medications are an important complement to existing vaccines in the prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Favipiravir is a medication with a similar mechanism of action to remdesivir but is administered orally and was first used against Sar-Cov-2 in Wuhan. This medication is also approved for use in Italy, Japan, Russia and several other countries.

One of the laboratories at the Institute of Chemistry

Under the direction of the President of VAST, the Institute of Chemistry has conducted research on synthesizing medication to treat Sars-Cov-2. The Institute of Chemistry has successfully researched a new and effective method of synthesizing Favipiravir in the laboratory. The research results contribute to the joint efforts of Vietnamese scientists in researching medication, vaccines and biological products for the prevention and control of COVID-19. In the near future, scientists from the Institute of Chemistry - Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology will continue to perfect and scale up this medication synthesis process.

Translated by Phuong Ha
Link to Vietnamese version