Cairo: Kuwait will take delivery of the first shipment of Favipiravir, an anti-viral medication sold under the brand name Avigan, from Japan next week, the Health Ministry said Friday.
The medication donated by the Japanese government with support from the UN comes after clinical trials on several slight and medium cases of the coronavirus cases have shown promising results, according to a health official.
“This first shipment of the medication comes as part of assistance for emergency response and humanitarian purposes. It has no commercial aspect from the Japanese government,” Dr Abdullah Al Badr, the Kuwaiti Health Ministry’s assistant undersecretary for medication affairs, told Kuwaiti news agency KUNA.
He added that the use of Avigan will be according to the Japanese guidelines, the WHO recommendations and Kuwait’s regulations.
“The Health Ministry is awaiting a new quantity of the medication to provide for conducting clinical studies in Kuwait and share their findings with international and scientific organisations,” he added.
Agreements have been reached over the past two months between the Kuwaiti government on the one hand and both the Japanese government and the UN Office for Project Services on Avigan procurement, according to the official.
